: 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY, POEMS 
AND PRAYERS 




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Autobiography, Poems 
AND Prayers 



BY 



THEODORE PARKER 



EDITED WITH NOTES 
BY 

RUFUS LEIGHTON 




BOSTON 

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 

25 Beacon Street 



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EDITOR'S PREFACE 

The ministry of Theodore Parker formed a unique 
epoch in the annals of Boston and the history of the 
church, of marked significance and far-reaching in- 
fluence, not only in this country, but extending to many 
foreign lands. 

On the 21st of June, 1838, he was ordained as min- 
ister to the church in West Roxbury, This position 
was admirably suited to his condition and needs at that 
time. The congregation was small and the salary 
meager ; but he was near the library of Harvard Col- 
lege and to the intellectual supplies of Boston. The 
surroundings were rural, and afforded him opportunity 
to enjoy his love of nature. He made friends of all 
his parishioners, most of whom were plain farmers, a 
few highly cultured, and was equally at home with 
them in their several interests. He was greatly beloved 
by them, and reciprocated their affection. In his quiet 
library he pursued his studies diligently all the week, 
sometimes sixteen hours a day for successive weeks. 
His Sunday services were a great pleasure to him, and 
most welcome to his hearers. Gradually he evolved his 
new views of religion, and gladly they took them in, 
and were not shocked thereat. Even the famous South 
Boston sermon on " The Transient and Permanent in 
Christianity," preached in 1841, did not abate their 
loyalty to him. 

But a wider field was opening to him. In the winter 
of 1841—42 he delivered a course of lectures in Boston, 
which were subsequently embodied in the " Discourse 
of Religion," which set forth in detail and with great 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

clearness his beliefs and disbeliefs in matters pertain- 
ing to religion. Other lectures followed, and his audi- 
ences were large and enthusiastic, notwithstanding the 
clerical opposition against him, which excluded him 
from nearly all the Unitarian pulpits. 

February 16th, 1845, he began to preach in Bos- 
ton under an engagement for a year, in response to an 
invitation from a committee of gentlemen who secured 
the Melodeon for that purpose, the best hall that could 
be obtained at that time. It was rather a dingy place, 
poorly lighted, not well ventilated, and used during 
the week for popular entertainments not of the highest 
grade. Before the year expired the Twenty-eighth 
Congregational Society was organized, and on the 
4th of January, 1846, Mr. Parker was installed as 
its permanent minister, with the simplest of ceremonies, 
he preaching his own sermon, and praying his own 
prayer. He at once attracted a large congregation,, 
frequently larger than the great hall could con- 
veniently accommodate. In November, 1852, the so- 
ciety removed to the new and beautiful Music Hall, 
which was much more spacious, though none too large 
for the audience — a most agreeable change for both 
pastor and people. 

Mr. Parker's ministry in Boston covered a period 
of fourteen years, during which he preached to the 
largest congregation gathered in any church in that 
city, comprising all sorts and conditions of men, from 
the most cultured to the least — each finding some- 
thing to satisfy him. His earnestness and sincerity, 
his vast range of information, embracing every depart- 
ment of human knowledge, his wealth of illustration, 
his aptness in discriminating between shams and reali- 
ties, his felicity of language, and wonderful faculty 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

of adapting his speech to the comprehension of listen- 
ers of all grades — made his sermons a delight to the 
minds and a refreshment to the souls of those who 
heard them. 

He preached the " absolute religion," and its adapta- 
tion to every department and phase of human life and 
conduct, exposed the falseness and hollowness of the 
popular theology, held up to view and denounced the 
sins of the nation and of society — war, slavery, in- 
temperance, the degradation of woman, covetousness, 
and minor vices, portrayed with masterly hand many 
prominent men of the nation, as warnings or examples, 
set up a lofty ideal of manhood and womanhood, and 
sought to bring all up to that high standard of virtue 
and excellence. The richness of his intellect, the sensi- 
tiveness of his conscience, the tenderness of his heart, 
:he yearning of his soul for the " first good, first per- 
fect, and first fair," his love of truth, his hatred of 
wrong and injustice, his moral courage, his intense 
humanity, and his fervid piety, were expressed in his 
sermons and prayers, which lifted his hearers to a higher 
plane, and gave them new life and strength and hope. 
Nothing like them was ever heard in any other pulpit. 
Mr. George Ripley, well known as a fine scholar and a 
nice critic, said with regard to these prayers : " There 
has been no devotional poetry to compare with them 
since that of the great Hebrew masters of song." 
Flowers were never absent from his pulpit, and he 
wove their beauty into his speech. He was a close 
student of nature as well as of books, and all her vari- 
ous manifestations ministered to his sense of beauty 
and fitness, and furnished him with the similies and 
analogies with which his discourses were adorned. 

A man of such commanding ability and genuine 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

sympathy with mankind could not be spared from 
taking an active part in any movement for the uplift- 
ing of the unfortunate and the down-trodden. In 
1845 he joined the antislavery leaders in their work 
and from that time forward was one of the most con- 
spicuous and indefatigible laborers in that field. He 
did an immense service in arousing and educating the 
conscience of the people, in impelling them to recog- 
nize and oppose the evils of slavery, and in enunciat- 
ing and diffusing the principles and shaping the policy 
which found practical expression in the national poli- 
tics, and which led ultimately to the overthrow of that 
gigantic wrong. He gave himself to this cause with 
all the ardor and thoroughness which characterized his 
efforts in the theological field, and lavished upon it all 
the wealth of his nature and acquirements. His writ- 
ings upon this subject form a body of antislavery 
literature of great value for clearness and accuracy 
of statement, historical narrative, and pertinent facts 
and statistics, — showing the rise and progress of slav- 
ery and the development of the Southern policy, and 
depicting the baneful results of the institution in clear, 
bold colors; setting forth also the great American 
idea which gives to the Constitution and the Union 
their value and glory, and rebuking with just indigna- 
tion the men in high places who betrayed that idea 
and imperiled the safety and prosperity of the coun- 

try- 

His exposition of the wickedness and injustice of 
the Fugitive Slave Law, and his denunciation of it and 
appeals to the higher law, when eminent statesmen, 
clergymen and merchants, led by Daniel Webster, con- 
trived to uphold it, and secure its enforcement, form 
a striking episode in the history of that eventful 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

period. His speech and action, when the kidnappers 
came to Boston in search of their fugitive slaves, 
proved his courage, and led to his indictment and the 
writing of his " Defense " — a remarkable book, which 
will be of great value to the future historian. It con- 
tains the best account to be found of judicial tyranny 
and legal injustice from the reign of James I to the 
time of his own indictment. 

His efforts for the suppression of poverty, igno- 
rance, drunkenness, prostitution and crime, and the 
removal of their causes, were vigorous and unceasing, 
and the victims of those evils found in him a wise 
friend and helper. These matters are discussed with 
great plainness and efficiency in his books, and are 
abundantly illustrated with facts and figures. His 
personal efforts, singly or in combination with others, 
for the benefit of these unfortunate classes were with- 
out stint, and much of his time was consumed in that 
way. 

The movement in behalf of the rights of woman and 
her equality with man found in him a hearty and elo- 
quent advocate, and he was one of the foremost in 
denouncing the injustice of those who deny these 
rights, in exposing the fallacies of their arguments, 
and appealing to the common sense and justice of 
mankind to accord to her her proper position and an 
equal opportunity with man for culture, development, 
and the exercise of her natural talents in various di- 
rections. 

Mr. Parker's preaching and other public speaking 
were not confined to Boston. As he became better 
known he was in demand In the lecture room and at 
gatherings of various kinds in New England and be- 
yond. During the last ten years of his active life he lee- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

tured from eighty to one hundred times each year, his 
field comprising every Northern State east of the Miss- 
issippi, and once he spoke in the slave State of Dela- 
ware, on slavery itself. When he entered the lecture 
room he faced a hostile and frowning audience, but such 
was his tact in presenting the subject and so interested 
became the listeners, that they applauded him and at 
the conclusion gave him a vote of thanks. Many in- 
vitations to lecture he was compelled to decline. The 
halls were always crowded, and he made hosts of friends 
during these expeditions, comprising many of the best 
people in the various towns, and overcame much of the 
prejudice existing against him. He spoke upon the 
subjects in which he was so deeply interested, mostly 
upon the various matters of reform to which he had 
given his life — not, however, making his theological 
views too prominent — in the simplest Saxon speech, 
and won his hearers to his side by his earnestness, di- 
rectness, candor and natural eloquence, and his happy 
faculty of presenting great themes, however dry and 
matter-of-fact in detail, in an attractive manner. An 
instance of this is given by T. W. Higginson, who 
says: 

" I have always remembered a certain lecture of his 
on the Anglo-Saxon as the most wonderful instance 
that ever came within my knowledge of the adaptation 
of solid learning to the popular intellect. There was 
almost two hours of unadorned fact — for there was 
less than usual of relief and illustration — yet the 
lyceum audience listened as if an angel sang to them. 
So perfect was his sense of purpose and of power, so 
clear and lucid was his delivery, with such wonderful 
composure did he lay out, section by section, his his- 
torical chart, that he grasped his hearers as absolutely 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

as he grasped his subject. Without grace or beauty 
or melody, his mere elocution was sufficient to produce 
effects which melody, grace or beauty might have 
sought for in vain." 

Although he was one of the giants of learning, his 
style is remarkable for its freedom from all taint of 
scholastic and metaphysical terms. Speaking of his 
mental qualifications, James Freeman Clarke, one of 
the few Unitarians who believed in the freedom of 
thought and stood by Mr. Parker when the clergy of 
that faith denounced him, and remained his warm 
friend to the last, said of him : 

" Some men's minds are filled with a great multitude 
of ill-assorted knowledges, crowded confusedly to- 
gether like a mob around a muster ground. Others 
have a very small number of very well arranged and 
drilled opinions, like a militia regiment, thoroughly 
organized as regards its officers, but very thin as re- 
gards its rank and file. The thoughts, opinions, con- 
victions, varieties of knowledge in Theodore Parker's 
mind are like a well-appointed and thoroughly-organ- 
ized army, with full ranks, beautiful in its uniforms 
and its banners, inspired by the martial airs of its 
music, complete in all arms — infantry, cavalry, en- 
gineers, artillery — marching to the overthrow of a 
demoralized and discouraged enemy." 

Ralph Waldo Emerson said of him : " Such was 
the largeness of his reception of facts, and his skill 
to employ them, that it looked as if he were some Pres- 
ident of Council to whom a score of telegraphs were 
ever bringing in reports and his information would 
have been excessive but for the noble use he made of 
it, ever in the interest of humanity." 

Theodore Parker was a minister at large to all man- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

kind. Apart from the various organized benevolent 
bodies in which he was interested, he was accessible to 
every human being who came to him for information, 
advice or aid of any kind, and the absolute readiness 
wdth which he gave his time and attention to this 
large class marked him as the one friend who could 
always be relied upon when needed. However busily 
engaged he might be with his own most important af- 
fairs, when the visitor came — often an entire stranger 
who had no right to intrude upon him — he at once 
laid aside his book or pen, and turned his interest to 
the matter presented, as if it were of the most vital 
concern, until he satisfied the applicant. Nobody ever 
doubted his ability to answer any question put to him. 
He was a walking encyclopedia of knowledge, and was 
never known to be unequal to the occasion. A young 
Scotchman with a letter addressed to " Some Chris- 
tian Minister in America," seeking employment in his 
handicraft, was told that the man most likely to help 
him lived at 1 Exeter Place, and when going there 
found he had not been misinformed. A Methodist 
minister from the country seeking literary help re- 
ceived it abundantly ; likewise a Baptist. Anxious 
mothers came to him to ask his advice about their chil- 
dren ; men in high office consulted him on the moral 
bearings of their official action ; chairmen of commit- 
tees asked him to write their reports ; young ladies 
brought their verses for his judgment as to their fit- 
ness for publication ; a revivalist asked leave to pray 
w ith him for his immediate conversion, and was courte- 
ously allowed to try. His home was a way-station, 
often a terminus for fugitive slaves, always lighted 
and warmed; also for political exiles from foreign 
lands, who there found wise counsel and friendly aid 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

in getting settled in their new home. Distressed men, 
sorrowing women, poverty-stricken scholars, all kinds 
of needy folk, came to him for comfort and advice. 
He helped them with money, and lavished upon them 
what was of far more value. His gifts, natural and 
acquired, were held in trust for his fellow men. The 
higher the gifts the greater the responsibility. 

His correspondence was as unique as it was exten- 
sive. His ungathered parish, all over this country and 
resident in many foreign lands, and speaking many 
tongues, who had never seen his face or heard his 
voice, expressed to him their gratitude in writing, 
sought his counsel in mental and moral perplexities. 
Almost illegible scrawls came from unlettered seek- 
ers after truth ; the pathetic wail of some far-away 
sufferer; the doubts, fears, aspirations, hopes, joys 
of many were confided to him ; the burdens of innumer- 
able hearts and consciences from writers all unknown 
to him were laid before him, and crowded his busy 
day, but were never disregarded. A miner in Silesia, 
a weaver in Scotland, a nobleman in Sweden, hosts of 
Germans, simple men, learned scientists, Dutch, French, 
English scholars. South Americans also, were among 
his correspondents. A colonel of the United States 
Army in the Mexican War wrote as follows : " Speak- 
ing for fourteen of my brother officers, as well as 
myself, before to-morrow's battle, which may be our 
last, I must express to you our deep gratitude for the 
view of religion you have opened to us, who had 
thought ourselves unbelievers." 

He was in constant communication with the great 
leaders of the Republican party — William H. Seward, 
Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale, Charles Sumner, 
Henry Wilson, and others, and undoubtedly his influ- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

€nce was exerted on the momentous questions of the 
day through them. Seward remarked to Wilson: 
" You have a wonderful man in Boston — Theodore 
Parker. In his grasp of the political issues of the 
times he surpasses us all." 

He was one of the most delightful of companions. 
His quick comprehension of the capacity of those who 
came within his range, his keen sense of humor and 
playful fancy, his genial temper, broad sagacity, and 
hearty sympathies, put them at once at their ease, 
and while they recognized his greatness they were 
never overpowered by it. His conversational power 
was marvelous. He could talk upon any subject, and 
astonished and fascinated every listener — pouring out 
a flood of various and delightful information, wit and 
wisdom, adapted to the needs and intelligence of the 
hearer, and never failing to say the right thing in the 
right place. Thackeray said, when he came to Amer- 
ica, that what he most desired was to hear Theodore 
Parker talk. He was a master of sarcasm and in- 
vective, and sometimes used them in the denunciation 
of crime and wickedness in high places, never wantonly 
to injure anyone's feelings, or from motives of re- 
venge. He cherished no personal ill-will against any 
human being. 

Although not wealthy, and with only very limited re- 
sources, he was the most generous of men. From 
his eighteenth year there was never a time when he 
was not giving the means of education to some young 
persons, often giving his personal instruction be- 
sides to those who needed it. He left a standing re- 
quest with the president of Harvard College to be 
informed of any deserving young man who might be 
helped with a little money in his struggles for an edu- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

cation. Having learned that the Twenty-eighth 
Congregational Society was at one time four hundred 
dollars in debt, he proposed to the standing commit- 
tee that his salary of two thousand dollars should be 
for the next year sixteen hundred dollars, thereby lift- 
ing the burden of debt from the society. On one oc- 
casion a pleasant excursion was planned by a few of 
his friends into New Hampshire, and the day fixed 
upon. The day before, he received a request to offi- 
ciate at the funeral of a little negro child whom he had 
never known before, to take place the next day, and 
gave up the excursion to attend to this duty. He al- 
ways had a tender regard for little children. In his 
long journeys across the country on lecture engage- 
ments, he carried a little bag of comfits to appease any 
restless little one whom he saw on the cars ; or if he no- 
ticed any distressed and forlorn-appearing woman, he 
sought to comfort her with such kindness as he could 
offer. When at home the neighbors' little children 
would sometimes run up the long flights of stairs to his 
study, shouting " Parkie," " Parkie." The door 
would open and they would be welcomed in, toys would 
be produced, and he would get down on the floor and 
play with the youngsters, who would have a delight- 
ful time with him. 

Spiritually he was of immense service to thousands 
of earnest men and women, who had fallen into indif- 
ference or unbelief in religious matters, — a condition 
for which the false theology and the low spiritual state 
of the church were largely responsible. By the pro- 
mulgation of his ideas he created a powerful revival 
of fundamental religion through the country, not by 
dealing with the more superficial elements of human 
nature and character, as did the Calvinistic churches 



EDITOR'S PREFACE 

in their so-called revivals. Their barbaric creeds, 
worldly policy, and social inhumanities, and their in- 
terpretation of the Bible had repelled these people. 
His presentation of the natural religion, based on rea- 
son and the noblest instincts of humanit}'-, drew them 
to his side, and they found a peace and satisfaction 
therein which they had not known before. 

No man was ever more cordially hated by such as 
upheld the errors, hypocrisies and iniquities which 
he exposed. No man was ever more deeply and ten- 
derly loved by those who recognized his true great- 
ness and manliness. Those of his personal friends who 
survive hold him ever as a sacred memory in their 
hearts and count it as the choicest of blessings that they 
were privileged to come within the charmed circle of 
his presence. 

RuFUs Leighton. 



§: 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Autobiography 1 

I. An Autobiographical Fragment ... 3 

II. The True Idea of a Christian Church 17 

III. Some Account of my Ministry. ... 50 

IV. Of the Position and Duty of a Minister 8S 

Prayers 109 

Parables 263 

Experience as a Minister . 273 

Poems 415 

Notes 447 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 

Of the Material Surroundings 

About 1710, my grandfather's grandfather, John 
Parker, then somewhat advanced in life, with a part 
of his grown-up children, removed from Reading, 
where a family of Parkers had settled about 1640, to 
the Cambridge Farms, since called Lexington, where 
he had bought a considerable quantity of land, with 
one small house upon it, probably of logs. The next 
year he built him a large and commodious house, and 
furnished it with the usual out-buildings necessary for 
a farmer's business. The situation was pleasant ; a 
considerable valley a mile or more in length and half 
a mile wide, with a fresh meadow at the bottom, called 
in deeds of the time " the great meadow," wound 
among hills tall and steep on the western and north- 
ern side, while on the south and east the hills were of 
less height and more gradual in their slope. Indeed, 
it is the general character of the hills in that part of 
the country to be steep on their southern and eastern 
side, and of gradual ascent on the opposite side. A 
brook stole through the valley or percolated through 
the soft, spongy meadow ; following a continuation of 
the valley, it falls into Charles River at length. The 
stream was then much larger than at present ; for now 
the hills have nearly all been stripped of their trees 
and the meadows drained, and the brook is proportion- 
ally shrunk, except when a sudden melting of snow 

3 



4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

floods the meadow and restores it to more than its orig- 
inal size. 

Near the upper end of the valley, in about the cen- 
tre of his farm lot, the old settler built his house, in 
which children to the fourth generation were to be 
born to him. It stood about 80 or 100 feet above the 
present surface of the great meadow, on the south- 
east side of a high hill, which gently sloping in front 
of the house, rose steep and abrupt behind. It faced 
as near the south as the rude science of the owner or 
builder could make it, and so was a perpetual sun-dial. 
It had but one chimney, that a huge one in the center 
of the building. The large bricks, made half-a-mile 
off, were laid in clay as far as the ridge-pole, while 
the part of the chimney above the roof was pointed 
with mortar. Limestone was not found within many 
miles, and the want of it was a serious inconvenience 
in building. The house, like all the others in that 
neighborhood, was two stories high in front, and 
only one in the rear. The rooms were few, but large 
and airy; the windows not numerous, of various size, 
but all small; originally all the latches, except that 
of the '' fore-door," were of wood, with wooden thumb- 
pieces, but these had nearly all passed away before my 
recollection. The house, as it stood in my day, had 
been built at different times, the eastern end being 
considerably younger than the western, and not fur- 
nished with the massive oak-beams which everywhere 
stuck out in the older part. A New England farmer 
of " comfortable estate " would hesitate a good deal 
before setting up his household in such a cheerless 
shelter; but three generations of stout and long-lived 
men were bom and grew up there ; and if the fourth be 
more puny and sink quicker to the grave, it is from 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 5 

no fault of the old house, but from the consumption 
which such spongy meadows in New England seldom 
fail to produce in the course of time; even children, 
who have removed to healthier situations, carry with 
them the fatal poison in their blood, and transmit it to 
their sons and daughters. 

As the old man at sunrise stood at the front or south 
door of his new house on some fine October morning 
of 1710, he could see but a single house, and that 
half or three-quarters of a mile off, the other side of 
the valley: two other columns of pale blue smoke in 
that direction might tell him of other neighbors, while 
not far off in the same valley were two others, hid by 
wooded hills ; in a different direction one more house 
had been built earlier than his own, but on the north 
side of the hill which sheltered him. 

Agriculture was at a low stage; that part of the 
country was covered with thick woods, and when the 
farmer cut down or girdled the trees and run the 
ground over with fire, the land must have looked as we 
see it now in parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, 
like " the abomination of desolation." However, he 
planted many apple-trees, importing them from Eng- 
land; but they had not been grafted, and so many of 
them bore sorry specimens of fruit. Many of those 
which it is said he set out were standing in my boy- 
hood. He, or his son Josiah, who succeeded to his 
lands at Lexington, planted also locust-trees, whose 
white blossoms used to fill the air with sweetness in 
June. He also brought lilac-bushes, a common orna- 
ment about the houses of New England in the last cen- 
tury, and planted a barberry-bush, which in my boy- 
hood had grown to prodigious dimensions, besides 
having increased and multiplied and replenished that 
part of the earth with its descendants. 



6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

In the rear of the house was a monstrous elm which 
endangered the building and was removed as a nui- 
sance; that was a full-grown tree in the days of my 
grandfather's grandfather: other huge oaks and elms 
once stood close b} , but they had all perished before 
my birth, and only a white ash with a great round top 
stood at the north-west corner of the house. It was 
planted by my grandfather, and was the largest tree 
of the kind I remember ever to have seen in New Eng- 
land. 

Huge boulders lay scattered about along the valley 
and its tributaries ; some were of the hard blueish 
greenstone which forms the skeleton of all the hills 
in that neighborhood, but others were of whitish gran- 
ite, brought many miles from their original site to the 
north-west of that locality. Loose stones abounded ; 
indeed, a more unattractive piece of land for a farmer 
to. work could scarcely be found than that whole re- 
gion for miles around in all directions. There were 
stones enough within a foot of the surface to fence 
^11 the land into acre lots, each surrounded with a 
strong " balance wall." 

-The most common trees were the numerous species 
of oak, the white pine, the pitch pine, and a variety 
of it called the yellow pine, the hemlock, and spruce; 
on the rocky hill-sides the juniper or red cedar; and 
in the swamps the cypress or white cedar; maples, the 
white or grey, black and yellow birches, the elm, white 
and black ashes, poplars, buttonwood, walnuts, chest- 
nut, beech, sassafras, and wild hop or hop-hornbeam, 
willows : three species of sumach occurring on the 
homestead; indeed, most of the trees of New England 
grow within a few miles of my home. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 7 

Of the Human Surroundings 

At the age of forty-five, my grandfather, Captain 
John Parker, died on the 17th of September, 1775. He 
was sick on the day of the Battle of Lexington, but 
did his duty from 2 a. m. till 12 at night. On the 
17th of June he was too ill to be allowed to enter the 
turmoil of the Battle of Bunker Hill, so he discon- 
tentedly commanded troops who did no fighting that 
day. He was never well afterwards, and an epidemic 
dysentery in September found him an easy pre}^ ; he 
died at an early age for his long-lived family, and 
left three sons and four daughters, with a widow, who 
died at the respectable age of ninety-two, passing a por- 
tion of the last forty-seven years of her life in a second 
marriage, which both she and her children had bitter 
cause to repent. The respectable property of Captain 
Parker was wasted, the relict obliged to take her new 
husband and his children home, to be supported on 
" the widows' thirds." When my father married 
Hannah Stearns, the daughter of a neighboring far- 
mer, he went back to the original homestead to take 
care of his mother, while he should support his hand- 
some young wife and such family as might happen. 
It was the day of small things — he wore home-made 
blue yam stockings at his wedding, and brought his 
wife home over the rough winding roads, riding in the 
saddle his tall grey horse, with her upon a pillion. 
The outfit of furniture did not bespeak more sumptu- 
ous carriage — the common plates were of wood ; the 
pitcher, mugs, tea-cups and saucers, were of coarse 
earthenware ; while the great carving dishes were of 
thick well-kept pewter. The holiday service " for 
company " was of the same material. Yet a few 



8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

costly wine glasses were not wanting, with two long- 
necked decanters, a few china tea-cups and saucers, 
of the minutest pattern, and the pride of the buffet, 
a large china bowl. Besides, the young bride could 
show patchwork bed-quilts and counterpanes, and a 
pretty store of linen towels, and a tablecloth of the 
same, white as the snow, and spun, woven, and bleached 
by her own laborious hands ; and her father raised the 
flax which her brother pulled, and rotted, and broke, 
and swingled, and hackled, and combed. Hannah made 
their work into linen. 

In the course of many years, ten children had been 
born to John and Hannah (one had slipped out of 
life an infant), when their fourth son and eleventh 
child came into the world, on the 24th of August, 
1810, lagging a little more than five years after his 
youngest, and afterwards his favorite sister. I think 
I was the last child born in the old house, which then 
numbered just 100 years. 

1. In my earliest childhood the family at home 
consisted (to begin in the order of age) of my father's 
mother, more than eighty at my birth. A tall, stately, 
proud-looking woman: she occupied an upper cham- 
ber, but came downstairs to dinner — other meals 
she took in her own room — and sat at the head of the 
table on the women side thereof, opposite my father, 
who kept up the ancient Puritan respect for age — 
always granting it precedence. She busied herself 
chiefly in knitting and puttering about the room, but 
passed the Sundays in reading the large Oxford quarto 
Bible of her husband, bought for the price of more 
than one load of hay, delivered up at Boston. She 
had also the original edition of the Puritan Hymn 
Book, printed at Cambridge, which was much in her 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 9 

hands. She read the newspapers, the Columbian Cen- 
tinel, which then appeared twice a week; but common 
mundane literature she seldom touched. It was a 
part of my childish business to carry the drink to my 
venerable grandmother — twice a day, at 11 a. m. and 
4 p. M. ; this was flip in cool weather, and in spring 
and summer was toddy or punch — the latter was, 
however, more commonly reserved for festive occa- 
sions. 

2. Next were my father and mother: grave, 
thoughtful, serious, and industrious people. From an 
ancestry of five generations of his own name, who had 
died in New England, my father had inherited a strong 
and vigorous body; in his youth, there was but one 
man in town who could surpass him in physical 
strength, and few who were his equals. He could en- 
dure cold and heat, abstinence from food and rest, to 
a degree that would be impossible to men brought up 
in the effeminate ways which so often are thought to 
be the curses of civilization. He was a skilful farmer ; 
though, as he lived not on his own land, but on " the 
widows' thirds," which his mother had only a life- 
estate in, he was debarred from making costly improve- 
ments in the way of buildings, fences, and apple-trees, 
which are long in returning profit to him that plants. 
But he yet contrived to have, perhaps, the best peach 
orchard in the county of Middlesex, to graft valuable 
kinds of fruit upon the old trees, and to adopt nearly 
all of the improvements in farming, as they were tested 
and found valuable. 

He was also an ingenious mechanic: his father and 
grandfather were mechanics as well as farmers, and 
did all kinds of work in wood, from building saw-mills, 
cider-mills, pumps, to making flax-spinning wheels, 



10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and turning wooden bread bowls out of maple stumps. 
He had religiously kept the tools of his father and 
grandfather, and like them continued to do all kinds 
of ordinary jobs; indeed, both he and they were such 
mechanics as men must be in a new country, and should 
not be in one where industry is more elaborate, and 
able-minded men are ready to turn their hand to any- 
thing. Mechanical talent was hereditary in the fam- 
ily for several generations, and appeared in my remote 
relations, and even among women, on whose slender 
shoulders this mantle seldom falls. My father was a 
thoughtful man, turning his large and active brain 
and his industrious hand to the mechanical and agri- 
cultural work before him ; he was an originator of new 
and short ways of doing many things, and made his 
head save his hands. In this respect his father and 
grandfather resembled him. 

His education — his schooling ended when the Revo- 
lution began — was of course, much neglected, but he 
was an uncommonly good arithmetician, often puzzling 
the school-masters with his original problems. Works 
on political economy and the philosophy of legislation 
were favorites with him. He had learned algebra 
and geometry, and was familiar with the use of 
logarithms. He read much on Sundays, in the long 
winter evenings, sometimes in the winter mornings be- 
fore it was light, and in the other intervals of toil. 
His favorite works were history — that of New Eng- 
land he was quite familiar with — biography and trav- 
el ; but he delighted most of all in works of philosophy 
Avhich give the rationale of the material or the human 
world; of course he read much of the theology of his 
times, and the literature of progressive minds found 
its way to the farmer's kitchen. He had no fondness 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 11 

for poetry. In his latter years, his reading was chiefly 
of novels, not to instruct, but only to amuse the old 
man, whose mortal life was all behind him. His fath- 
ers before him had been bookish men. 

My mother, a woman of slight form, flaxen hair, 
blue eyes, and a singularly fresh and delicate com- 
plexion, more nervous than muscular, had less educa- 
tion than my father. Her reading was confined 
mainly to the Bible, the hymn-book, stories of New 
England captives among the Indians, of which there 
were many in the neighborhood, some in manuscript, 
and perhaps never printed. Ballads and other humble 
forms of poetry gave her a great delight. Of course 
the newspaper passed through her busy hands. My 
father often read aloud to her and the rest of the 
family In the long winter evenings, while her fingers 
were occupied with sewing or knitting, making or 
mending. She was Industrious, as indeed were all the 
women of the neighborhood, but like them found op- 
portunities, though too rare, for social enjoyment with 
them. Dinner was always at noon, and after that was 
over and Its paraphernalia put in order, the household 
work was done, and a more comely dress took the place 
of the blue check of the morning. 

She was eminently a religious woman. I have 
known few in whom the religious instincts were so 
active and so profound, and who seemed to me to 
enjoy so completely the life of God In the soul of man. 
To her the Deity was an Omnipresent Father, filling 
every point of space with His beautiful and loving 
presence. She saw Him in the rainbow and in the 
drops of rain which helped compose It as they fell Into 
the muddy ground to come up grass and trees, corn 
and flowers. She took a deep and still delight in 



12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

silent prayer — of course it was chiefly the more spir- 
itual part of the Old Testament and New Testament 
that formed her favorite reading, the dark theology 
of the times seems not to have blackened her soul at 
all. She took great pains with the moral culture of 
her children — at least with mine. 

S. Come the brothers and sisters, nine in number, 
and one in infancy laid away in the grave. Some of 
these were much older than I, and had already gone 
to seek their fortunes in the various trades and call- 
ings of the time. There was still a houseful at home ; 
all of them but three had a decided fondness for lit- 
erature ; they read all the good books they could lay 
their hands on, and copied the better parts. At school 
they were always among the best scholars. 

4. The uncles and aunts come next. On my 
father's side there were two uncles and twice as many 
aunts ; one of the former, a farmer not far off, a tall, 
grave man; the other, a more restless character, had 
served many years in the Revolutionary War ; he was 
in the battles of Saratoga and Yorktown, had failed in 
business, gone to South Carolina, and married a woman 
with some property at Charleston, where he then lived, 
the father of one son. Of the aunts one was a maiden, 
an uncommonly intellectual woman; another was a 
widow living in an adjoining town, while two were the 
wives of farmers, one living in Nova Scotia, the other 
in Watertown not far off. On the maternal side there 
was one aunt, a strange, eccentric woman, and ten 
uncles, rejoicing in the names of Asahel, Jepthah, 
Noah, Ammi, Ishmael, and Habbakuk, and the like, 
which, if not euphonious, are at least scriptural. They 
were farmers and laborers, some rich and some poor. 

Besides, the brothers and sisters of my grandmother 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 13 

still continued to live, though aged people. Other 
relations from the Parker side of the family dwelt in 
more remote towns, who occasionally paid my father 
a visit, in special one very old and tall man, to whom 
he surrendered the head of the table and invited to 
say grace. 

5. The neighbors about us were farmers ; a shoe- 
maker lived a mile off on one side, and a blacksmith 
within two miles on the other. These were generally, 
perhaps universally, honest, hard-working men; they 
went to meeting Sundays, morning and afternoon. 
" Their talk was of bullocks, and they were diligent 
to give the kine fodder." In their houses, generally 
neat as good house-wifery could make them, you would 
find the children's school-books, commonly a " singing- 
book," Billings' Collection, or some other, perhaps a 
hymn-book, and always a good quarto Bible kept in 
the best room, sometimes another Bible inherited from 
some Puritanic ancestor; these, with an almanac hung 
in the corner of the kitchen chimney, made up the 
family library. Perhaps a weekly or semi-weekly 
newspaper was also taken and diligently read. Two 
families not far off were exceptions to this poverty 
of books. I now think of no more. Yet now and 
then the life of some great thief, like Stephen Bur- 
row, or some pirate or highwayman, would show itself. 
In other parts of Lexington, " on the great road," in 
" the middle of the town," perhaps there was a better 
show of books. I only speak of my immediate neigh- 
borhood. 

From Birth Till the Age of Eight 

On the 24th of August, 1810, early on a hot, 
sweltering morning, I came into this world of joys 



14. AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and sorrows. It seems one of my sisters thought an 
eleventh child improbable ; for she had finished the 
" Family Tree " with the tenth — five years older than 
myself. However, a place was soon found for the 
new-comer both in the needle-work and the hearts of 
the household. As the youngest child, it may be sup- 
posed I was treated with uncommon indulgence, and 
probably received a good deal more than a tenth part 
of the affection distributed. I remember often to have 
heard neighbors say, " Why, Miss Parker, you're 
spilin' your boy ! He never can take care of himself 
when he grows up." To which she replied she hoped 
not, and kissed my flaxen curls anew. 

Among the earliest things I remember is the longing 
I used to feel to have the winter gone, and to see the 
great snow-bank — sometimes when new-fallen, as high 
as the top of the kitchen window — melt away in front 
of the house. I loved, though, to run in the snow 
barefoot, and with only my night-shirt on, for a few 
minutes at a time. When the snow was gone, the pe- 
culiar smell of the ground seemed to me delicious. 
The first warm days of spring, which brought the blue 
birds to their northern home, and tempted the bees to 
try short flights, .in which they presently dropped on 
the straw my provident father had strewn for them 
over the snow about their hives, filled me with emotions 
of the deepest delight. In the winter I was limited 
to the kitchen, where I could build cob-houses, or fonn 
little bits of wood into fantastic shapes. Sometimes 
my father or one of my brothers would take me to the 
shop where he pursued his toilsome work, or to the 
barn, where the horse, the oxen, and the cows were a 
perpetual pleasure. But when the snow was gone, 
and the ground dry, I had free range. I used to sit 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 15 

or lie on the ground in a dry and sheltered spot, and 
watch the great yellow clouds of April, that rolled 
their huge masses far above my head, filling my eye 
with their strange, fantastic, beautiful, and ever- 
changing forms, and my mind with wonder at what 
they were, and how they came there. 

But the winter itself was not without its in-door 
pleasure, even for a little fellow in brown homespun 
petticoats. The uncles and aunts came in their sleighs 
full of cousins, some of whom were of my own age, to 
pass a long afternoon and evening, not without abun- 
dant good-cheer and a fire in " the other room," as 
the humble parlor was modestly named. They did 
not come without a great apple, or a little bag of 
shagbarks, or some other tid-bit for " Miss Parker's " 
baby ; for so the youngest was called long after he 
ceased to merit the name. Nay, father and mother 
often returned these visits, and sometimes took the 
baby with them ; because the mother did not like to 
leave the darling at home, or perhaps she wished to 
show how stout and strong her eleventh child had come 
into the world. 

I must relate one example to show, as well as many 
more, the nice and delicate care she took of my moral 
culture. When a little boy in petticoats in my fourth 
year, one fine day in spring, my father led me by the 
hand to a distant part of the farm, but soon sent me 
home alone. On the way I had to pass a little " pond- 
hole " then spreading its waters wide ; a rhodora in full 
bloom — a rare flower in my neighborhood, and 
which grew only in that locality — attracted my at- 
tention and drew me to the spot. I saw a little spotted 
tortoise sunning himself in the shallow water at the 
root of the flaming shrub. I lifted the stick I had in 



16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

my hand to strike the harmless reptile ; for, though 
I had never killed any creature, yet I had seen other 
boys out of sport destroy birds, squirrels, and the like, 
and I felt a disposition to follow their wicked exam- 
ple. But all at once something checked my little arm, 
and a voice within me said, clear and loud, " It is 
wrong ! " I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the 
new emotion — the consciousness of an involuntary but 
inward check upon my actions, till the tortoise and the 
rhodora both vanished from my sight. I hastened 
home and told the tale to my mother, and asked what 
was it that told me it was wrong? She wiped a tear 
from her eye with her apron, and taking me in her 
arms, said, " Some men call it conscience, but I pre- 
fer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If 
you listen and obej^ it, then it will speak clearer and 
clearer, and always guide you right ; but if you turn 
a deaf ear or disobey, then it will fade out little by 
little, and leave you all in the dark and without a guide. 
Your life depends on heeding this little voice." She 
went her way, careful and troubled about many things, 
but doubtless pondered them in her motherly heart ; 
while I went off to wonder and think it over in my 
poor, childish way. But I am sure no event in my life 
has made so deep and lasting an impression on me. 



II 

THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

For nearly a year we have assembled within these 
walls from week to week, — I think not idly ; I know 
you have not come for any trivial end. You have 
recently made a formal organization of yourselves for 
religious action. To-day, at your request, I enter 
regularly on a ministry in the midst of you. What 
are we doing; what do we design to do.f^ We are 
here to establish a Christian church; and a Christian 
church, as I understand it, is a body of men and women 
united together in a common desire of religious ex- 
cellence and with a common regard for Jesus of 
Nazareth, regarding him as the noblest example of 
morality and religion, — as the model, therefore, in 
this respect for us. Such a church may have many 
rites, as our Catholic brothers, or but a few rites, as 
our Protestant brothers, or no rites at all, as our 
brothers the Friends. It may be, nevertheless, a 
Christian church ; for the essential of substance, which 
makes it a religious body, is the union for the pur- 
pose of cultivating love to God and man; and the es- 
sential of form, which makes it a Christian body, is 
the common regard for Jesus, considered as the high- 
est representative of God that we know. It is not 
the form, either of ritual or of doctrine, but the spirit 
which constitutes a Christian church. A staff may 
sustain an old man, or a young man may bear it in 
his hands as a toy, but walking is walking, though 
the man have no staff for ornament or support. A 

Christian spirit may exist under rituals and doctrines 
XII— 2 i^ 



18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the most diverse. It were hard to say a man is not 
a Christian, because he believes in the doctrine of the 
Trinity, or the pope, while Jesus taught no such doc- 
trine; foolish to say one is no Christian because he 
denies the existence of a devil, though Jesus believed 
it. To make a man's Christian name depend on a 
belief of all that is related by the numerous writers 
in the Bible, is as absurd as to make that depend on 
a belief in all the words of Luther, or Calvin, or St. 
Augustine. It is not for me to say a man is not 
theoretically a Christian because he believes that slav- 
ery is a divine and Christian institution ; that war is 
grateful to God — saying, with the Old Testament, 
that God himself " is a man of war," who teaches men 
to fight, and curses such as refuse ; — or because he 
believes that all men are born totally depraved, and 
the greater part of them are to be damned everlast- 
ingly by " a jealous God," who is " angry with the 
wicked every da}'," and that the few are to be " saved " 
only because God unjustly punished an innocent man 
for their sake. I will not say a man is not a Christian 
though he believe all the melancholy things related 
of God in some parts of the Old Testament, yet I 
know few doctrines so hostile to real religion as these 
have proved themselves. In our day it has strangely 
come to pass that a little sect, themselves hooted at 
and called " infidels " by the rest of Christendom, 
deny the name of Christian to such as publicly reject 
the miracles of the Bible. Time will doubtless cor- 
rect this error. Fire is fire, and ashes ashes, say what 
we may ; each will work after its kind. Now if 
Christianity be the absolute religion, it must allow all 
beliefs that are true, and it may exist and be developed 
in connection with all forms consistent with the abso- 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 19 

lute religion, and the degree thereof represented by 
Jesus. 

The action of a Christian church seems to be two- 
fold : first on its own members, and then, through their 
means, on others out of its pale. Let a word be said 
of each in its order. If I were to ask you why you 
came here to-day; why you have often come to this 
house hitherto ? — the serious amongst you would say : 
That we might become better; more manly; upright 
before God and downright before men ; that we might 
be Christians, men good and pious after the fashion 
Jesus spoke of. The first design of such a church 
then is to help ourselves become Christians. Now the 
substance of Christianity is piety — love to God, and 
goodness — love to men. It is a religion, the germs 
whereof are born in your heart, appearing in your 
earliest childhood; which are developed just in propor- 
tion as you become a man, and are indeed the standard 
measure of your life. As the primeval rock lies at 
the bottom of the sea and appears at the top of the 
loftiest mountains, so in a finished character religion 
underlies all and crowns all. Christianity, to be per- 
fect and entire, demands a complete manliness; the 
development of the whole man, mind, conscience, heart, 
and soul. It aims not to destroy the sacred peculiari- 
ties of individual character. It cherishes and develops 
them in their perfection, leaving Paul to be Paul, not 
Peter, and John to be John, not Jude nor James. 
We are bom different, into a world where unlike things 
are gathered together, that there may be a special 
work for each. Christianity respects this diversity in 
men, aiming not to undo but further God's will; not 
fashioning all men after one pattern, to think alike, 
act alike, be alike, even look alike. It is something 



20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

far other than Christianity which demands that. A 
Christian church then should put no fetters on the 
man ; it should have unity of purpose, but with the 
most entire freedom for the individual. When you 
sacrifice the man to the mass in Church or State, 
Church or State becomes an offense, a stumbling-block 
in the way of progress, and must end or mend. The 
greater the variety of individualities in Church or 
State, the better is it, so long as all are really manly, 
humane, and accordant. A church must needs be par- 
tial, not catholic, where all men think alike, narrow 
and little. Your church-organ, to have compass and 
volume, must have pipes of various sound, and the 
skilful artist destroys none, but tunes them all to har- 
mony; if otherwise, he does not understand his work. 
In becoming Christians let us not cease to be men ; 
nay, we cannot be Christians unless we are men first. 
It were unchristian to love Christianity better than 
the truth, or Christ better than man. 

But Christianity is not only the absolute religion ; 
it has also the ideal man. In Jesus of Nazareth it 
gives us, in a certain sense, the model of religious 
excellence. It is a great thing to have the perfect 
idea of religion ; to have also that idea made real, 
satisfactory to the wants of any age, were a yet fur- 
ther greatness. A Christian church should aim to 
have its members Christians as Jesus was the Christ; 
sons of man as he was; sons of God as much as he. 
To be that it is not needful to observe all the forms 
he complied with, only such forms as help you ; not 
needful to have all the thoughts that he had, only 
such thoughts as are true. If Jesus were ever mis- 
taken, as the Evangelists make it appear, then it is 
a part of Christianity to avoid his mistakes as well 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 21 

as to accept his truths. It is the part of a Christian 
church to teach men so; to stop at no man's limita- 
tions ; to prize no word so high as truth ; no man so 
dear as God. Jesus came not to fetter men, but free 
them. 

Jesus is a model man in this respect: that he stands 
in a true relation to men, that of forgiveness for their 
ill-treatment, service for their needs, trust in their 
nature, and constant love towards them, — towards 
even the wicked and hypocritical; in a true relation 
to God, that of entire obedience to Him, of perfect 
trust in Him, of love towards Him with the whole mind, 
heart, and soul ; and love of God is also love of truth, 
goodness, usefulness, love of love itself. Obedience 
to God and trust in God is obedience to these things, 
and trust in them. If Jesus had loved any opinion 
better than truth, then had he lost that relation to 
God, and so far ceased to be inspired by Him; had 
he allowed any partial feeling to overcome the spirit 
of universal love, then also he had sundered himself 
from God, and been at discord, not in harmony with 
the Infinite. 

If Jesus be the model man, then should a Christian 
church teach its members to hold the same relation to 
God that Christ held; to be one with Him; incarna- 
tions of God, as much and as far as Jesus was one 
with God, and an incarnation thereof, a manifestation 
of God in the flesh. It is Christian to receive all the 
truths of the Bible; all the truths that are not in the 
Bible just as much. It is Christian also to reject 
all the errors that come to us from without the Bible 
or from within the Bible. The Christian man, or the 
Christian church, is to stop at no man's limitation ; 
at the limit of no book. God is not dead, nor even 



22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

asleep, but awake and alive as ever of old ; He inspires 
men now no less than bef oretime ; is ready to fill your 
mind, heart, and soul with truth, love, life, as to fill 
Moses and Jesus, and that on the same terms; for 
inspiration comes by universal laws, and not by par- 
tial exceptions. Each point of spirit, as each atom 
of space, is still bathed in the tides of Deity. But 
all good men, all Christian men, all inspired men, will 
be no more alike than all wicked men. It is the same 
light which is blue in the sky and golden in the sun. 
" All nature's difference makes all nature's peace." 

We can attain this relation to man and God only 
on condition that we are free. If a church cannot 
allow freedom it were better not to allow itself, but 
cease to be. Unity of purpose, with entire freedom 
for the individual, should be the motto. It is only 
free men that can find the truth, love the truth, live 
the truth. As much freedom as you shut out, so much 
falsehood do you shut in. It is a poor thing to pur- 
chase unity of church-action at the cost of individual 
freedom. The Catholic Church tried it, and you see 
what came thereof: science forsook it, calling it a den 
of lies. Morality forsook it, as the mystery of ini- 
quity, and religion herself protested against it, as the 
mother of abominations. The Protestant churches 
are trying the same thing, and see whither they tend 
and what foes rise up against them, — philosophy with 
its Bible of nature, and religion with its Bible of man, 
both the handwriting of God. The great problem of 
Church and State is this: To produce unity of action 
and yet leave individual freedom not disturbed; to 
balance into harmonious proportions the mass and the 
man, the centripetal and centrifugal powers, as, by 
God's wondrous, living mechanism, they are balanced 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 23 

in the worlds above. In the State we have done this 
more wisely than any nation heretofore. In the 
churches it remains yet to do. But man is equal to 
all which God appoints for him. His desires are ever 
proportionate to his duty and his destinies. The 
strong cry of the nations for liberty, a craving as 
of hungry men for bread and water, shows what liberty 
is worth, and what it is destined to do. Allow free- 
dom to think, and there will be truth; freedom to act, 
and we shall have heroic works; freedom to live and 
be, and we shall have love to men and love to God. 
The world's history proves that, and our own history. 
Jesus, our model man, was the freest the world ever 
saw. 

Let it be remembered that every truth is of God, 
and will lead to good and good only. Truth is the 
seed whereof welf a*re is the fruit ; . for every grain 
thereof we plant some one shall reap a whole harvest 
of welfare. A lie is " of the devil," and must lead 
to want, and woe, and death, ending at last in a storm 
where it rains tears and perhaps blood. Have free- 
dom, and you will sow new truth to reap its satisfac- 
tion ; submit to thraldom, and you sow lies to reap the 
death they bear. A Christian church should be the 
home of the soul, where it enjoys the largest liberty of 
the sons of God. If fettered elsewhere, here let us be 
free. Christ is the liberator; he came not to drive 
slaves, but to set men free. The churches of old did 
their greatest work, when there was most freedom in 
those churches. 

Here too should the spirit of devotion be encour- 
aged ; the soul of man communing with his God in 
aspirations after purity and truth, in resolutions for 
goodness, and piety, and a manly life. These are a 



M AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

prayer. The fact that men freely hold truths in com- 
mon, great truths and universal; that unitedly they 
lift up their souls to God seeking instruction of Him ; 
this will prove the strongest bond between man and 
man. It seems to me that the Protestant churches have 
not fully done justice to the sentiment of worship; 
that in taking care of the head we have forgotten the 
heart. To think truth is the worship of the head; 
to do noble works of usefulness and charity the wor- 
ship of the will ; to feel love and trust in man and God 
is the glad worship of the heart. A Christian church 
should be broad enough for all; should seek truth 
and promote piety, that both together might toil in 
good works. 

Here should be had the best instruction which can 
be commanded; the freest, truest, and most manly 
voice; the mind most conversant with truth; the elo- 
quence of a heart that runs over with goodness, whose 
faith is unfaltering in truth, justice, purity, and love; 
a faith in God, whose charity is living love to men, 
even the sinful and the base. Teaching is the breath- 
ing of one man's inspiration into another, a most real 
thing amongst real men. In a church there should 
be instruction for the young. God appoints the 
father and mother the natural teachers of children; 
above all is it so in their religious culture. But there 
are some who cannot, many who will not, fulfil this 
trust. Hence it has been found necessary for wise 
and good men to offer their instruction to such. In 
this matter it is religion we need more than theology, 
and of this it is not mere traditions and mythologies 
we are to teach, the anile tales of a rude people in a 
dark age, things our pupils will do well to forget soon 
as they are men, and which they will have small rea- 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 25 

son to thank us for obscuring their minds withal; but 
it is the great, everlasting truths of religion which 
should be taught, enforced by examples of noble men, 
which tradition tells of, or the present age affords, 
all this to be suited to the tender years of the child. 
Christianity should be represented as human, as man's 
nature in its true greatness; religion shown to be 
beautiful, a real duty corresponding to man's deepest 
desire, that as religion affords the deepest satisfaction 
to man, so it is man's most universal want. Christ 
should be shown to men as he was, the manliest of 
men, the most divine because the most human. Children 
should be taught to respect their nature; to consider 
it as the noblest of all God's works ; to know that per- 
fect truth and goodness are demanded of them, and 
by that only can they be worthy men; taught to feel 
that God is present in Boston, and to-day, as much 
as ever in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus. They 
should be taught to abhor the public sins of our times, 
but to love and imitate its great examples of noble- 
ness, and practical religion, which stand out amid the 
mob of worldly pretenders in this day. 

Then, too, if one of our members falls into unworthy 
ways, is it not the duty of some one to speak with 
him, not as with authority to command, but with af- 
fection to persuade.? Did any one of you ever address 
an erring brother on the folly of his ways with manly 
tenderness, and try to charm him back, and find a 
cold repulse.? If a man is in error he will be grate- 
ful to one that tells him so ; will learn most from 
men who make him ashamed of his littleness of life. 
In this matter it seems many a good man comes short 
of his duty. 

There is yet another way in which a church should 



m AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

act on its own household, and that is by direct material 
help in time of need. There is the eternal distinction 
of the strong and the weak, which cannot be changed. 
But as things now go there is another inequality not 
of God's appointment, but of man's perversity, the 
distinction of rich and poor — of men bloated by 
superfluous wealth and men starving and freezing from 
want. You know and I know how often the strong 
abuse their strength, exerting it solely for themselves 
and to the ruin of the weak; we all know that such 
are reckoned great in the world, though they may 
have grown rich solely by clutching at what others 
earned. In Christianity, and before the God of jus- 
tice, all men are brothers ; the strong are so that they 
may help the weak. As a nation chooses its wisest 
men to manage its affairs for the nation's good, and 
not barely their own, so God endows Charles or Samuel 
with great gifts that they may also bless all men 
thereby. If they use those powers solely for their 
pleasure, then are they false before men ; false before 
God. It is said of the church of the Friends that no 
one of their number has ever received the charity of an 
almshouse, or for a civil offense been shut up in a jail. 
If the poor forsake a church, be sure that the church 
forsook God long before. 

But the church must have an action on others out 
of its pale. If a man or a society of men have a 
truth, they hold it not for themselves alone, but for 
all men. The solitary thinker who in a moment of 
ecstatic action in his closet at midnight discovers a 
truth, discovers it for all the world and for eternity. 
A Christian church ought to love to see its truths 
extend; so it should put them in contact with the 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 27 

opinions of the world, not with excess of zeal or lack 
of charity. 

A Christian church should be a means of reform- 
ing the world, of forming it after the pattern of 
Christian ideas. It should therefore bring up the sen- 
timents of the times, the ideas of the times, and the ac- 
tion of the times, to judge them by the universal 
standard. In this way it will learn much and be a 
living church, that grows with the advance of men's 
sentiments, ideas and actions, and while it keeps the 
good of the past will lose no brave spirit of the pres- 
ent day. It can teach much; now moderating the 
fury of men, then quickening their sluggish steps. 
We expect the sins of commerce to be winked at in 
the street; the sins of the State to be applauded on 
election days and in Congress, or on the Fourth of 
July ; we are used to hear them called the righteous- 
ness of the nation. There they are often measured 
by the avarice or the ambition of greedy men. You 
expect them to be tried by passion, which looks only 
to immediate results and partial ends. Here they are 
to be measured by conscience and reason, which look 
to permanent results and universal ends; to be looked 
at with reference to the laws of God, the everlasting 
ideas on which alone is based the welfare of the world. 
Here they are to be examined in the light of Christian- 
ity itself. If the church be true, many things which 
seem gainful in the street and expedient in the senate- 
house, will here be set down as wrong, and all gain 
which comes therefrom seem to be but a loss. If there 
be a public sin in the land, if a lie invade the State, 
it is for the Church to give the alarm ; it is here that 
it may war on lies and sins ; the more widely they are 
believed in and practised, the more are they deadly, 



^8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the more to be opposed. Here let no false idea or false 
action of the public go without exposure and rebuke. 
But let no noble heroism of the times, no noble man 
pass bj without due honor. If it is a good thing to 
honor dead saints and the heroism of our fathers ; it 
is a better thing to honor the saints of to-day, the 
live heroism of men who do the battle, when that 
battle is all around us. I know a few such saints, here 
and there a hero of that stamp, and I will not wait 
till they are dead and classic before I call them so 
and honor them as such, for 

"To side with truth is noble when we share her wretched crust, 
Ere her cause bring fame and profit and 'tis prosperous to be 

just; 
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands 

aside, 
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. 
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they once denied; 
For humanity sweeps onward; where today the martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas, with the silver in his hands; 
Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling fagots 

burn, 
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return 
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn." 

Do you not see that if a man have a new truth, it 
must be reformatory and so create an outcry? It will 
seem destructive as the farmer's plough ; like that, it is 
so to tares and thistles, but the herald of the harvest 
none the less. In this way a Christian church should 
be a society for promoting true sentiments and ideas. 
If it would lead, it must go before men ; if it would be 
looked up to, it must stand high. 

That is not all: it should be a society for the pro- 
motion of good works. We are all beneath our idea, 
and therefore transgressors before God. Yet He 
gives us the rain, the snow and the sun. It falls on 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 29 

me as well as on the field of my neighbor, who is a 
far juster man. How can we repent, cast our own sins 
behind us, outgrow and forget them, better than by 
helping others to work out their salvation? We are 
all brothers before God. Mutually needful we must 
be; mutually helpful we should be. Here are the 
ignorant that ask our instruction, not with words only, 
but with the prayer of their darkness, far more sup- 
pliant than speech. I never see an ignorant man 
younger than myself, without a feeling of self-re- 
proach, for I ask, " What have I been doing to suffer 
him to grow up in nakedness of mind? " Every man, 
born in New England, who does not share the culture 
of this age, is a reproach to more than himself, and 
will at last actively curse those who began by desert- 
ing him. The Christian church should lead the move- 
ment for the public education of the people. 

Here are the needy who ask not so much your gold, 
your bread, or your cloth, as they ask also your sym- 
pathy, respect, and counsel; that you assist them to 
help themselves, that they may have gold won by their 
industry, not begged out of your benevolence. It 
is justice more than charity they ask. Every beggar, 
every pauper, bom and bred amongst us, is a reproach 
to us, and condemns our civilization. For how has it 
come to pass that in a land of abundance here are 
men, for no fault of their own, born into want, living 
in want, and dying of want? and that, while we pre- 
tend to a religion which says all men are brothers! 
There is a horrid wrong somewhere. 

Here too are the drunkard, the criminal, the aban- 
doned person, sometimes the foe of society, but far 
oftener the victim of society. Whence come the 
tenants of our almshouses, jails, the victims of vice 



30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

in all our towns? Why, from the lowest rank of the 
people; from the poorest and most ignorant. Say 
rather from the most neglected, and the public sin 
is confessed, and the remedy hinted at. What have 
the strong been doing all this while, that the weak 
have come to such a state .^^ Let them answer for 
themselves. 

Now for all these ought a Christian church to toil. 
It should be a church of good works ; if it is a church 
of good faith it will be so. Does not Christianity say 
the strong should help the w^eak.^^ Does not that mean 
something.? It once did. Has the Christian fire 
faded out from those words, once so marvelously 
bright.? Look round you, in the streets of your own 
Boston 1 See the ignorant, men and women with 
scarce more than the stature of men and women ; boys 
and girls growing up in ignorance and the low civiliza- 
tion which comes thereof, the barbarians of Boston. 
Their character will one day be a blot and a curse 
to the nation, and who is to blame.? Why, the ablest 
and best men, who might have had it otherwise if 
they would. Look at the poor, men of small ability, 
weak by nature, born into a weak position, therefore 
doubly weak ; men whom the strong use for their pur- 
pose, and then cast them off as we throw away the 
rind of an orange after we have drunk its generous 
juice. Behold the wicked, so we call the weak men 
that are publicly caught in the cobweb of the law; 
ask why they became wicked; how we have aimed to 
reform them ; what we have done to make them respect 
themselves, to believe in goodness, in man and God? 
and then say if there is not something for Christian 
men to do, something for a Christian church to do. 
Every almshouse in Massachusetts shows that the 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 31 

churches have not done their duty, that the Christians 
lie lies when they call Jesus " Master " and men 
" brothers." Every jail is a monument, on which it 
is writ in letters of iron that we are still heathens^ 
and the gallows, black and hideous, the embodiment 
of death, the last argument a " Christian " state of- 
fers to the poor wretches it trained up to be criminals, 
stands there, a sign of our infamy ; and while it lifts its 
horrid arm to crush the life out of some miserable 
man, whose blood cries to God against Cain in the 
nineteenth century, it lifts that same arm as an index 
of our shame. 

Is that all? Oh, no! Did not Jesus say, resist 
not evil — with evil ? Is not war the worst form of 
that evil; and is there on earth a nation so greedy 
of war ; a nation more reckless of provoking it ; one 
where the war-horse so soon conducts his foolish rider 
into fame and power.'' The " heathen " Chinese might 
send their missionaries to America, and teach us to 
love men. Is that all? Far from it. Did not Christ 
say, whatsoever you would that men should do unto 
you, do you even so unto them; and are there not 
three million brothers of yours and mine in bondage 
here, the hopeless sufferers of a savage doom ; debarred 
from the civilization of our age, the barbarians of 
the nineteenth century; shut out from the pretended 
religion of Christendom, the heathens of a Christian 
land; chained down from the liberty inalienable in 
man, the slaves of a Christian republic? Does not 
a cry of indignation ring out from every legislature 
in the north ; does not the press war with its million 
throats, and a voice of indignation go up from east 
and west, out from the hearts of freemen? Oh, no. 
There is none of that cry against the mightiest sin 



32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of this age. The rock of Plymouth, sanctified by the 
feet which led a nation's way to freedom's large estate, 
provokes no more voice than the rottenest stone in all 
the mountains of the West. The few that speak a 
manly word for truth and everlasting right, are called 
fanatics; bid be still, lest they spoil the market. 
Great God ! and has it come to this, that men are silent 
over such a sin? 'Tis even so. Then it must be that 
every church which dares assume the name of Christ, 
that dearest name to men, thunders and lightens on 
this hideous wrong ! That is not so. The Church 
is dumb, while the State is only silent ; while the serv- 
ants of the people are only asleep, " God's ministers " 
are dead! 

In the midst of all these wrongs and sins, the crimes 
of men, society, and the State, amid popular igno- 
rance, pauperism, crime and war, and slavery too — 
is the Church to say nothing, do nothing ; nothing for 
the good of such as feel the wrong, nothing to save 
them who do the wrong.? Men tell us so, in word and 
deed ; that way alone is " safe ! " If I thought so, 
I would never enter the church but once again, 
and then to bow my shoulders to their manliest work, 
to heave down its strong pillars, arch and dome, and 
roof and wall, steeple and tower, though like Samson 
I buried myself under the ruins of that temple which 
profaned the worship of God most high, of God most 
loved. I would do this in the name of man; in the 
name of Christ I would do it ; yes, in the dear and 
blessed name of God. 

It seems to me that a church which dares name 
itself Christian, the church of the Redeemer, which 
aspires to be a true church, must set itself about all 
this business, and be not merely a church of theology, 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 33 

but of religion ; not of faith only, but of works ; a 
just church by its faith bringing works into life. It 
should not be a church termagant, which only peevishly 
scolds at sin, in its anile way; but a church militant 
against every form of evil, which not only censures, 
but writes out on the walls of the world the brave 
example of a Christian life, that all may take pattern 
therefrom. Thus only can it become the church 
triumphant. If a church were to waste less time in 
building its palaces of theological speculation, palaces 
mainly of straw, and based upon the chaff, erecting 
air-castles and fighting battles to defend those palaces 
of straw, it would surely have more time to use in the 
practical good works of the day. If it thus made a 
city free from want and ignorance and crime, I know 
I vent a heresy, I think it would be quite as Christian 
an enterprise as though it restored all the theology 
of the dark ages ; quite as pleasing to God. A good 
sermon is a good thing, no doubt, but its end is not 
answered by its being preached; even by its being 
listened to and applauded; only by its awakening a 
deeper life in the hearers. But in the multitude of 
sermons there is danger lest the bare hearing thereof 
be thought a religious duty, not a means, but an end, 
and so our Christianity vanish in words. What if 
every Sunday afternoon the most pious and manly 
of our number, who saw fit, resolved themselves into 
a committee of the whole for practical religion, and 
held not a formal meeting, but one more free, some- 
times for the purpose of devotion, the practical work 
of making ourselves better Christians, nearer to one 
another, and sometimes that we might find means to 
help such as needed help, the poor, the ignorant, the 

intemperate, and the wicked? Would it not be a work 
XII— 3 



84 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

profitable to ourselves, and useful to others weaker 
than we? For my own part I think there are no 
ordinances of religion like good works ; no day too 
sacred to help my brother in ; no Christianity like a 
practical love of God shown by a practical love of 
men. Christ told us that if we had brought our gift 
to the very altar, and there remembered our brother 
had cause of complaint against us, we must leave the 
divine service, and pay the human service first. If 
my brother be in slavery, in want, in ignorance, in sin, 
and I can aid him and do not, he has much against 
me and God can better wait for my prayer than my 
brother for my help. 

The saints of olden time perished at the stake ; they 
hung on gibbets ; they agonized upon the rack ; they 
died under the steel of the tormentor. It was the 
heroism of our fathers' day that swam the unknown 
seas ; froze in the woods ; starved with want and cold ; 
fought battles with the red right hand. It is the 
sainthood and heroism of our day that toils for the 
ignorant, the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the wicked. 
Yes, it is our saints and heroes who fight fighting; 
who contend for the slave, and his master too, for the 
drunkard, the criminal; yes, for the wicked or the 
weak in all their forms. It is they that with weapons 
of heavenly proof fight the great battle for the souls 
of men. Though I detest war in each particular fiber 
of my heart, yet I honor the heroes among our fathers 
who fought with bloody hand ; peacemakers in a savage 
way, they were faithful to the light ; the most inspired 
can be no more, and we, with greater light, do, it 
may be, far less. I love and venerate the saints of old ; 
men who dared step in front of their age; accepted 
Christianity when it cost something to be a Christian, 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 35 

because it meant something ; they applied Christianity, 
so far as they knew it, to the lies and sins of their 
times, and won a sudden and a fiery death. But the 
saints and heroes of this day, who draw no sword, 
Tvhose right hand is never bloody, who bum in no fires 
of wood or sulphur, nor languish briefly on the hasty 
cross; the saints and heroes who, in a worldly world, 
dare to be men; in an age of conformity and selfish- 
ness, speak for truth and man, living for noble aims ; 
men who will swear to no lies howsoever popular; who 
will honor no sins, though never so profitable, re- 
spected, and ancient; men who count Christ not their 
master, but teacher, friend, brother, and strive like 
him to practise all they pray; to incarnate and make 
real the Word of God, — these men I honor far more 
than the saints of old. I know their trials, I see their 
dangers, I appreciate their sufferings, and since the 
day when the man on Calvary bowed his head, bidding 
persecution farewell with his " Father, forgive them, 
for they know not what they do," I find no such saints 
and heroes as live now ! They win hard fare, and hard 
toil. They lay up shame and obloquy. Theirs is the 
most painful of martyrdoms. Racks and fagots soon 
waft the soul to God, stem messengers but swift. A 
boy could bear that passage, the martyrdom of death. 
But the temptation of a long life of neglect, and scorn, 
and obloquy, and shame, and want, and desertion by 
false friends; to live blameless though blamed, cut off 
from human sympathy, that is the martyrdom of to- 
day. I shed no tears for such martyrs. I shout when 
I see one ; I take courage and thank God for the real 
saints, prophets, and heroes of to-day. In another 
age, men shall be proud of these puritans and pilgrims 
of this day. Churches shall glory in their names and 



86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

celebrate their praise in sermon and in song. Yea, 
though now men would steal the rusty sword from 
underneath the bones of a saint or hero long deceased, 
to smite off therewith the head of a new prophet, that 
ancient hero's son; though they would gladly crush 
the heart out of him with the tombstones they piled 
up for great men, dead and honored now ; yet in some 
future day, that mob, penitent, baptized with a new 
spirit, like drunken men returned to sanity once more, 
shall search through all this land for marble white 
enough to build a monument to that prophet whom 
their fathers slew ; they shall seek through all the world 
for gold of fineness fit to chronicle such names. I 
cannot wait; but I will honor such men now, not ad- 
journ the warning of their voice, and the glory of their 
example, till another age! The Church may cast out 
such men ; bum them with the torments of an age too 
refined in its cruelty to use coarse fagots and the vul- 
gar axl It is no loss to these men; but the ruin of 
the Church. I say the Christian church of the nine- 
teenth century must honor such men, if it would do 
a church's work ; must take pains to make such men as 
these, or it is a dead church, with no claim on us, ex- 
cept that we bury it. A true church will always be the 
church of martyrs. The ancients commenced every 
great work with a victim. We do not call it so ; but 
the sacrifice is demanded, got ready, and offered by un- 
conscious priests long ere the enterprise succeeds. Did 
not Christianity begin with a martyrdom.'' 

In this way, by gaining all the truth of the age in 
thought or action, by trying public opinions with its 
own brave ideas, by promoting good works, applying 
a new truth to an old error, and with unpopular right- 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH SI 

eousness overcoming each popular sin, the Christian 
church should lead the civilization of the age. The 
leader looks before, goes before, and knows where he 
is going; knows the way thither. It is only on this 
condition that he leads at all. If the church by look- 
ing after truth, and receiving it when it comes, be in 
unison with God, it will be in unison with all science, 
which is only the thought of God translated from the 
facts of nature into the words of men. In such a 
case, the church will not fear philosophy, nor in the 
face of modem science aim to reestablish the dreams- 
and fables of a ruder day. It will not lack new truth, 
daring only to quote, nor be obliged to sneak behind 
the inspired words of old saints as its only fortress, for 
it will have words just as truly inspired, dropping from 
the golden mouths of saints and prophets now. For 
leaders it will look not back, but forth; will fan the 
first faint sparkles of that noble fire just newly kindled 
from the skies ; not smother them in the ashes of fires 
long spent ; not quench them with holy water from Jor- 
dan or the Nile. A church truly Christian, professing 
Christ as its model man, and aiming to stand in the^ 
relation he stood, must lead the way in moral enter- 
prises, in every work which aims directly at the welfare 
of man. There was a time when the Christian 
churches, as a whole, held that rank. Do they now? 
Not even the Quakers — perhaps the last sect that aban- 
doned it. A prophet, filled with love of man and love 
of God, is not therein at home. I speak a sad truth, 
and I say it in sorrow. But look at the churches of 
this city: do they lead the Christian movements of 
this city — the temperance movement, the peace move- 
ment, the movement for the freedom of men, for edu- 
catioUj the movement to make society more just, more 



38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

wise and good, the great religious movement of these 
times — for, hold down our eyelids as we will, there is 
a religious movement at this day on foot, such as even 
New England never saw before ; — do they lead in these 
things? Oh, no, not at all. That great Christian 
orator, one of the noblest men New England has seen 
in this century, whose word has even now gone forth 
to the nations beyond the sea, while his spirit has gone 
home to his Father, when he turned his attention to 
the practical evils of our time and our land, and our 
civilization, vigorously applying Christianity to life, 
why, he lost favor in his own little sect. They feared 
him, soon as his spirit looked over their narrow walls, 
aspiring to lead men to a better work. I know men 
can now make sectarian capital out of the great name 
of Channing, so he is praised; perhaps praised loud- 
est by the very men who then cursed him by their gods. 
Ay, by their gods he was accursed! The churches 
lead the Christian movements of these times.'' — why, 
has there not just been driven out of this city, and 
out of this State, a man conspicuous in all these move- 
ments, after five and twenty years of noble toil ; driven 
out because he was conspicuous in them ! You know 
it is so, and you know how and by whom he is thus 
driven out.-"^ 

Christianity is humanity ; Christ is the Son of man ; 
the manliest of men ; humane as a woman ; pious and 
hopeful as a prayer; but brave as man's most daring 
thought. He has led the world in morals and religion 
for eighteen hundred years, only because he was the 
manliest man in it; the humanest and bravest man in 
it, and hence the divinest. He may lead it eighteen 
hundred years more, for we are bid believe that God 
can never make again a greater man ; no, none so 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 39 

great. But the churches do not lead men therein, for 
they have not his spirit ; neither that womanliness which 
wept over Jerusalem, nor that manliness which drew 
down fire enough from heaven to light the world's 
altars for well nigh two thousand years. 

There are many ways in which Christ may be de- 
nied : — one is that of the bold blasphemer, who, out 
of a base and haughty heart mocks, scoffing at that 
manly man, and spits upon the nobleness of Christ. 
There are few such deniers ; my heart mourns for them. 
But they do little harm. Religion is so dear to men, 
no scoffing word can silence that, and the brave soul 
of this young Nazarene has made itself so deeply felt 
that scorn and mockery of him are but an icicle held 
up against the summer's sun. There is another way 
to deny him, and that is : — to call him Lord, and 
never do his bidding; to stifle free minds with his 
words ; and with the authority of his name to cloak, 
to mantle, screen, and consecrate the follies, errors, 
sins of men. From this we have much to fear. 

The church that is to lead this century will not be 
a church creeping on all fours ; mewling and whining, 
its face turned down, its eyes turned back. It must 
be full of the brave, manly spirit of the day, keeping 
also the good of times past. There is a terrific energy 
in this age, for man was never so much developed, 
so much the master of himself before. Great truths, 
moral and political, have come to light. They fly 
quickly. The iron prophet of types publishes his vis- 
ions, of weal or woe, to the near and far. This mar- 
velous age has invented steam, and the magnetic tele- 
graph, apt symbols of itself, before which the miracles 
of fable are but an idle tale. It demands, as never 
before, freedom for itself, usefulness in its institu- 



40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tions ; truth in its teachings, and beauty in its deeds. 
Let a church have that freedom, that usefulness, truth, 
and beauty, and the energy of this age will be on its 
side. But the church which did for the fifth cen- 
tury, or the fifteenth, will not do for this. What is 
well enough at Rome, Oxford, or Berlin, is not well 
enough for Boston. It must have our ideas, the smell 
of our ground, and have grown out of the religion in 
our soul. The freedom of America must be there be- 
fore this energy will come ; the wisdom of the nine- 
teenth century before its science will be on the churches* 
side, else that science will go over to the " infidels." 

Our churches are not in harmony with what is best 
in the present age. Men call their temples after their 
old heroes and saints — John, Paul, Peter, and the 
like. But we call nothing else after the old names; 
a school of philosophy would be condemned if called 
Aristotelian, Platonic, or even Baconian. We out- 
travel the past in all but this. In the church it seems 
taught there is no progress unless we have all the past 
on our back; so we despair of having men fit to call 
churches by. We look back and not forward. We 
think the next saint must talk Hebrew like the old 
ones, and repeat the same mythology. So when a new 
prophet comes we only stone him. 

A church that believes only in past inspiration will 
appeal to old books as the standard of truth and source 
of light ; will be antiquarian in its habits ; will call its 
children by the old names ; and war on the new age, not 
understanding the man-child born to rule the world. 
A church that believes in inspiration now will appeal 
to God; try things by reason and conscience; aim to 
surpass the old heroes ; baptize its children with a new 
spirit, and using the present age will lead public opin- 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 41 

ion, and not follow it. Had Christ looked back for 
counsel, he might have founded a church fit for Abra- 
ham or Isaac to worship in, not for the ages to come, 
or the age then. He that feels he is near to God, does 
not fear to be far from men ; if before, he helps lead 
them on ; if above, to lift them up. Let us get all we 
can from the Hebrews and others of old time, and that 
is much; but still let us be God's free men, not the 
Gibeonites of the past. 

Let us have a church that dares imitate the heroism 
of Jesus; seek inspiration as he sought it; judge the 
past as he; act on the present like him; pray as he 
prayed; work as he wrought; live as he lived. Let 
our doctrines and our forms fit the soul, as the limbs 
fit the body, growing out of it, growing with it. Let 
us have a church for the whole man: truth for the 
mind ; good works for the hands ; love for the heart ; 
and for the soul, that aspiring after perfection, that 
unfaltering faith in God which, like lightning in the 
clouds, shines brightest when elsewhere it is most dark. 
Let our church fit man, as the heavens fit the earth. 

In our day men have made great advances in sci- 
ence, commerce, manufactures, in all the arts of life. 
We need, therefore, a development of religion cor- 
responding thereto. The leading minds of the age 
ask freedom to inquire ; not merely to believe, but to 
know; to rest on facts. A great spiritual movement 
goes swiftly forward. The best men see that religion 
is religion ; theology is theology, and not religion ; 
that true religion is a very simple affair, and the pop- 
ular theology a very foolish one ; that the Christianity 
of Christ is not the Christianity of the street, or the 
State, or the churches; that Christ is not the model 



42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

man, only " imputed " as such. These men wish to 
apply good sense to matters connected with religion; 
to apply Christianity to life, and make the world a bet- 
ter place, men and women fitter to live in it. In this 
way they wish to get a theology that is true; a mode 
of religion that works, and works well. If a church 
can answer these demands, it will be a live church; 
leading the civilization of the times, Hving with all 
the mighty life of this age, and nation. Its prayers 
will be a lifting up of the hearts in noble men towards 
God, in search of truth, goodness, piety. Its sacra- 
ments will be great works of reform, institutions for 
the comfort and the culture of men. Let us have a 
church in which religion, goodness towards men and 
piety towards God, shall be the main thing ; let us have 
a degree of that suited to the growth and demands of 
this age. In the middle ages, men had erroneous con- 
ceptions of religion, no doubt ; yet the Church led the 
world. When she wrestled with the State, the State 
came undermost to the ground. See the results of that 
supremacy — all over Europe there arose the cloister, 
halls of learning for the chosen few, minister, dome, 
cathedral, miracles of art, each costing the wealth 
of a province. Such was the embodiment of their 
ideas of religion, the prayers of a pious age done in 
stone, a psalm petrified as it rose from the world's 
mouth ; a poor sacrifice, no doubt, but the best they 
knew how to offer. Now if men were to engage in re- 
ligion as in politics, commerce, arts, if the absolute re- 
ligion, the Christianity of Christ, were applied to life 
with all the might of this age, as the Christianity of 
the Church was then applied, what a result should we 
not behold 1 We should build up a great State with 
unity in the nation, and freedom in the people ; a State 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 43 

where there was honorable work for every hand, bread 
for all mouths, clothing for all backs, culture for every 
mind, and love and faith in every heart. Truth would 
be our sermon, drawn from the oldest of Scriptures, 
God's writing there in nature, here in man; works of 
daily duty would be our sacrament; prophets inspired 
of God would minister the word, and piety send up 
her psalm of prayer, sweet in its notes, and joyfully 
prolonged. The noblest monument to Christ, the fair- 
est trophy of religion, is a noble people, where all are 
well fed and clad, industrious, free, educated, manly, 
pious, wise, and good. 

Some of you may now remember, how ten months 
and more ago, I first came to this house to speak. I 
shall remember it for ever. In those rainy Sundays 
the very skies looked dark. Some came doubtingly, 
uncertain, looking around, and hoping to find cour- 
age in another's hope. Others came with clear glad 
face; openly, joyfully, certain they were right; not 
fearing to meet the issue ; not afraid to be seen meet- 
ing it. Some came, perhaps, not used to worship in 
a church, but not the less welcome here ; some mistak- 
ing me for a destroyer, a doubter, a denier of all 
truth, a scoffer, an enemy to man and God. I won- 
der not at that. Misguided men had told you so, in 
sermon and in song; in words publicly printed and 
published without shame; in the covert calumny, slyly 
whispered in the dark. Need I tell you my feelings; 
how I felt at coming to the town made famous by great 
men, Mayhew, Chauncy, Buckminster, Kirkland, Hol- 
ley, Pierpont, Channing, Ware — names dear and hon- 
ored in my boyish heart. Need I tell you how I felt 
at sight of the work which stretched out before me? 



44 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Do you wonder that I asked, Who is sufficient for these 
things? and said, Alas, not I, Thou knowest, Lord! 
But some of jou told me you asked not the wisdom of 
a wiser man, the ability of one stronger, but only that 
I should do what I could. I came, not doubting that 
I had some truths to say ; not distrusting God, nor man, 
nor you; distrustful only of myself. I feared I had 
not the power, amid the dust and noises of the day, 
to help you see and hear the great realities of religion 
as they appeared to me ; to help you feel the life of real 
religion, as in my better moments I have felt its truth. 
But let that pass. As I came here from Sunday to 
Sunday, when I began to feel your spirits prayed with 
mine a prayer for truth and life; as I looked down 
into your faces, thoughtful and almost breathless, I 
forgot my self -distrust ; I saw the time was come ; that, 
feebly as I know I speak, my best thoughts were ever 
the most welcome. I saw the harvest was plenteous 
indeed: but the preacher, I feel it still, was all un- 
worthy of his work. 

Brothers and Sisters, let us be true to our sentiments 
and ideas. Let us not imitate another's form unless 
it symbolize a truth to us. We must not affect to be 
singular, but not fear to be alone. Let us not fool- 
ishly separate from our brothers elsewhere. Truth is 
yet before us, not only springing up out of the manly 
words of this Bible, but out of the ground ; out of the 
heavens ; out of man and God. Whole firmaments of 
truth hang ever o'er our heads, waiting the telescopic 
eye of the true-hearted see-er. Let us follow truth, 
in form, thought, or sentiment, wherever she may call. 
God's daughter cannot lead us from the path. The 
further on we go, the more we find. Had Columbus 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 45 

turned back only the day before he saw the land, the 
adventure had been worse than lost. 

We must practise a manly self-denial. Religion al- 
ways demands that, but never more than when our 
brothers separate from us, and we stand alone. By 
our mutual love and mutual forbearance, we shall stand 
strong. With zeal for our common work, let us have 
charity for such as dislike us, such as oppose and 
would oppress us. Let us love our enemies, bless them 
that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray 
for such as despltefully use us. Let us overcome their 
evil speech with our own goodness. If others have 
treated us 111, called us unholy names, and mocked at 
us, let us forgive It all, here and now, and help them 
also to forget and outgrow that temper which bade 
them treat us so. A kind answer Is fittest rebuke to 
an unkind word. 

If we have any truth It will not be kept hid. It 
will run over the brim of our urn and water our 
brother's field. Were any truth to come down to us 
in advance from God, It were not that we might fore- 
stall the light, but shed It forth for all His children 
to walk by and rejoice In. " One candle will light a 
thousand " if It be Itself lighted. Let our light shine 
before men so that they may see our good deeds, and 
themselves praise God by a manly life. This we owe 
to them as to ourselves. A noble thought and a mean 
man make a sorry union. Let our Idea show Itself 
in our life — that Is preaching, right eloquent. Do 
this, we begin to do good to men, and though they 
should oppose us, and our work should fail, we shall 
have yet the approval of our own heart, the approval 
of God, be whole within ourselves, and one with Him. 



46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Some of you are venerable men. I have wondered 
that a youthful ardor should have brought you here. 
Your silvery heads have seemed a benediction to my 
work. But most of you are young. I know it is 
no aping of a fashion that has brought you here. I 
have no eloquence to charm or please you with ; I only 
speak right on. I have no reputation but a bad name 
in the churches. I know you came not idly, but seek- 
ing after truth. Give a great idea to an old man, and 
he carries it to his grave ; give it to a young man, and 
he carries it to his life. It will bear both young and 
old through the grave and into eternal heaven beyond. 

Young men and women, the duties of the world fall 
eminently on you. God confides to your hands the 
ark which holds the treasures of the age. On young 
shoulders He lays the burden of life. Yours is the 
period of passion; the period of enterprise and of 
work. It is by successive generations that mankind 
goes forward. The old, stepping into honorable 
graves, leave their places and the results they won to 
you. But departing they seem to say, as they linger 
and look back. Do ye greater than we have done ! The 
young just coming into your homes seem to say. In- 
struct us to be nobler than yourselves ! Your life is 
the answer to your children and your sires. The next 
generation will be as you make it. It is not the schools 
but the people's character that educates the child. 
Amid the trials, duties, dangers of your life, religion 
alone can guide you. It is not the world's eye that is 
on you, but God's; it is not the world's religion that 
will suffice you, but the religion of a man, which unites 
you with truth, justice, piety, goodness ; yes, which 
makes you one with God. 

Young men and women — you can make this church 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 47 

a fountain of life to thousands of fainting souls. 
Yes, you can make this city nobler than city ever was 
before. A manly life is the best gift you can leave 
mankind; that can be copied for ever. Architects of 
your own weal or woe, your destiny is mainly in your 
own hands. It is no great thing to reject the popu- 
lar falsehoods; little and perhaps not hard. But to 
receive the great sentiments and lofty truths of real 
religion, the Christianity of Christ; to love them, to 
live them in your business and your home, that is the 
greatest work of man. Thereby you partake of the 
spirit and nature of God ; you achieve the true destiny 
for yourself ; you help your brothers do the same. 

When my own life is measured by the ideal of that 
young Nazarene, I know how little I deserve the name 
of Christian; none knows that fact so well as I. But 
you have been denied the name of Christian because 
you came here, asking me to come. Let men see that 
you have the reality, though they withhold the name. 
Your words are the least part of what you say to men. 
The foolish only will judge you by your talk; wise 
men by the general tenor of your life. Let your re- 
ligion appear in your work and your play. Pray in 
your strongest hours. Practise your prayers. By 
fair-dealing, justice, kindness, self-control, and the 
great work of helping others while you help yourself, 
let your life prove a worship. These are the real sac- 
raments and Christian communion with God, to which 
water and wine are only helps. Criticize the world 
not by censure only, but by the example of a great 
life. Shame men out of their littleness, not by mak- 
ing mouths, but by walking great and beautiful 
amongst them. You love God best when you love 
men most. Let your prayers be an uplifting of the 



48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

soul in thought, resolution, love, and the light thereof 
shall shine through the darkest hour of trouble. Have 
not the Christianity of the street; but carry Christ's 
Christianity there. Be noble men, then your works 
must needs be great and manly. 

This is the first Sunday of a new year. What an 
hour for resolutions ; what a moment for prayer ! If 
you have sins in your bosom, cast them behind you 
now. In the last year, God has blessed us ; blessed us 
all. On some his angels waited, robed in white, and 
brought new joys; here a wife, to bind men closer yet 
to Providence; and there a child, a new Messiah, sent 
to tell of innocence and heaven. To some his angels 
came clad in dark livery, veiling a joyful countenance 
with unpropitious wings, and bore away child, father, 
sister, wife, or friend. Still were they angels of good 
Providence, all God's own ; and he who looks aright 
finds that they also brought a blessing, but concealed, 
and left it, though they spoke no word of joy. One 
day our weeping brother shall find that gift and wear 
it as a diamond on his breast. 

The hours are passing over us, and with them the 
day. What shall the future Sundays be, and what the 
year.? What we make them both. God gives us time. 
We weave it into life, such figures as we may, and wear 
it as we will. Age slowly rots away the gold we are 
set in, but the adamantine soul lives on, radiant every 
way in the light streaming down from God. The 
genius of eternity, star-crowned, beautiful, and with 
prophetic eyes, leads us again to the gates of time, 
and gives us one more year, bidding us fill that golden 
cup with water as we can or will. There stand the 
dirty, fetid pools of worldliness and sin; curdled, and 



TRUE IDEA OF A CHURCH 49 

mantled, film-covered, streaked, and striped with many 
a hue, they shine there, in the slanting light of new- 
born day. Around them stand the sons of earth and 
cry, Come hither ; drink thou and be saved ! Here fill 
thy golden cup ! There you may seek to fill your urn ; 
to stay your thirst. The deceitful element, roping 
in your hands, shall mock your lip. It is water only 
to the eye. Nay, show-water only unto men half- 
blind. But there, hard by, runs down the stream of 
life, its waters never frozen, never dry ; fed by peren- 
nial dews falling unseen from God. Fill there thine 
urn, oh, brother-man, and thou shalt thirst no more for 
selfishness and crime, and faint no more amid the toil 
and heat of day; wash there, and the leprosy of sin, 
its scales of blindness, shall fall off, and thou be clean 
for ever. Kneel there and pray ; God shall inspire thy 
heart with truth and love, and fill thy cup with never- 
ending joy! 
XII— 4 



in 

SOME ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 

** I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God." 
Acts xx. 27. 

On the 22nd of January, 1845, at a meeting of 
gentlemen in Boston, which some of you very well re- 
member, it was " Resolved, that the Rev. Theodore 
Parker shall have a chance to be heard in Boston." 

That resolution has been abundantly backed up by 
action ; and I have had " a chance to be heard." And 
this is not all: I have had a long and patient, a most 
faithful and abundant hearing. No man in the last 
eight years in New England has had so much. I mean 
to say, no minister in New England has done so much 
preaching, and had so much hearing. This is the re- 
sult of your resolution, and your attempts to make 
your thought a thing. 

As this seems likely to be the last time I shall stand 
within these walls, it is not improper that I should give 
some little account of my stewardship whilst here ; and 
therefore you will pardon me if I speak considerably 
of myself, — a subject which has been before you a 
long time, very much in your eye, and I think also very 
much in your heart. 

I must, in advance, ask your indulgence for the 
character of this sermon. I have but just returned 
from an expedition to Ohio, to lecture and to preach ; 
whither I went weary and not well, and whence I have 
returned still more weary and no better. It is scarcely 
more than twenty-four hours since I came back, and 
accordingly but a brief time has been allowed me for 

50 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 61 

the composition of this sermon. For its manner and 
its matter, its substance and its form, therefore, I must 
ask your indulgence. 

When I spoke to you for the first time on that dark, 
rainy Sunday, on the 16th of February, 1845, I had 
recently returned from Europe. I had enjoyed a 
whole year of leisure; it was the first and last I have 
ever had. I had employed that time in studying the 
people and institutions of Western Europe ; their social, 
academical, political, and ecclesiastical institutions. 
And that leisure gave me an opportunity to pause, 
and review my scheme of philosophy and theology ; to 
compare my own system with that of eminent men, as 
well living as dead, in all parts of Europe, and see 
how the scheme would fit the wants of Christendom, 
Protestant and Catholic. It was a very fortunate thing 
that at the age of three and thirty I was enabled to 
pause, and study myself anew ; to re-examine what I 
had left behind me, and recast my plans for what of life 
might yet remain. 

You remember, when you first asked me to come here 
and preach, I doubted and hesitated, and at first said. 
No; for I distrusted my own ability to make my idea 
welcome at that time to any large body of men. In 
the country I had a small parish, very dear to me still, 
wherein I knew every man, woman, and child, and was 
well known to them: I knew the thoughts of such as 
had the habit of thinking. Some of them accepted 
my conclusions because they had entertained Ideas like 
them before I did, perhaps before I was born. Others 
tolerated the doctrine because they liked the man, and 
the doctrine seemed part of him, and, if they took my 
ideas at all, took them for my sake. You, who knew 



i^ 



52 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

little of me, must hear the doctrine before you could 
know the man ; and, as you would know the doctrine 
only as I had power to set it forth in speech, I doubted 
if I should make it welcome. I had no doubt of the 
truth of my idea ; none of its ultimate triumph. I felt 
certain that one day it would be " a flame in all men's 
hearts." I doubted only of its immediate success in 
my hands. 

Some of you had not a very clear notion of my 
programme of principles. Most of you knew this, — 
that a strong effort was making to exclude me from 
the pulpits of New England; not on account of any 
charge brought against my character, but simply on 
account of the ideas which I presented; ideas which, 
as I claimed, were bottomed on the nature of man and 
the nature of God: my opponents claimed that they 
were not bottomed on the Bible. You thought that 
my doctrine was not fairly and scientifically met; that 
an attempt was making, not to put it down by reason, 
but to howl it down by force of ecclesiastical shout- 
ing ; and that was true. And so you passed a resolve 
that Mr. Parker should have " a chance to be heard 
in Boston," because he had not a chance to be heard 
anywhere else, in a pulpit, except in the little village of 
West Roxbury. 

It was a great principle, certainly, which was at 
stake; the great Protestant principle of free individ- 
uality of thought in matters of religion. And that, 
with most of you, was stronger than a belief in my 
peculiar opinions ; far stronger than any personal 
fondness for me. Therefore your resolution was bot- 
tomed on a great idea. 

My scheme of theology may be briefly told. There 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 53 

are three great doctrines in it, relating to the idea of 
God, the idea of man, and of the connection or rela- 
tion between God and man. 

First, of the idea of God. I have taught the infinite 
perfection of God ; that in God there are united all con- 
ceivable perfections, — the perfection of being, which 
is self -existence ; the perfection of power, almighti- 
ness ; the perfection of wisdom, all-knowingness ; the 
perfection of conscience, all-righteousness ; the perfec- 
tion of the affections, all-lovingness ; and the perfection 
of soul, all-holiness ; — that He is perfect Cause of all 
that He creates, making everything from a perfect 
motive, of perfect material, for a perfect purpose, as a 
perfect means ; — that He is perfect Providence also, 
and has arranged all things in His creation so that 
no ultimate and absolute evil shall befall anything- 
which He has made; — that, in the material world, 
all is order without freedom, for a perfect end; and 
in the human world, the contingent forces of human 
freedom are perfectly known by God at the moment 
of creation, and so balanced together that they shall 
work out a perfect blessedness for each and for all His 
children. 

That is my idea of God, and it is the foundation of 
all my preaching. It is the one idea in which I differ 
from the antichristian sects, and from every Christian 
sect. I know of no Christian or antichristian sect which 
really believes in the Infinite God. If the infinity of 
God appears in their synthetic definition of Deity, it is 
straightway brought to nothing in their analytic de- 
scription of the divine character, and their historic ac- 
count of His works and purposes. 



54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Then, of the idea of man. I have taught that God 
gave mankind powers perfectly adapted to the pur- 
pose of God; that the body of man was just what God 
meant it to be ; had nothing redundant, to be cut off 
sacramentally ; was not deficient in anything, to be sac- 
ramentally agglutinated thereunto ; and that the spirit 
of man was exactly such a spirit as the good God meant 
to make; redundant in nothing, deficient in nothing; 
requiring no sacramental amputation of an old faculty, 
no sacramental imputation of a new faculty from an- 
other tree ; that the mind and conscience and heart and 
soul were exactly adequate to the function that God 
meant for them all ; that they found their appropriate 
objects of satisfaction in the universe ; and as there was 
food for the body, — all nature ready to serve it on due 
condition, — so there was satisfaction for the spirit, 
truth and beauty for the intellect, justice for the con- 
science ; human beings — lover and maid, husband and 
wife, kith and kin, friend and friend, parent and child 
— for the affections ; and God for the soul ; that man 
can as naturally find satisfaction for his soul, which 
hungers after the infinite God, as for his heart, which 
hungers for a human friend, or for his mouth, which 
hungers for daily bread; that mankind no more needs 
to receive a miraculous revelation of things pertaining 
to religion than of things pertaining to housekeeping, 
agriculture, or manufactures ; for God made the re- 
ligious faculty as adequate to its function as the prac- 
tical faculties for theirs. 

In the development of man's faculties, I have taught 
that there has been a great progress of mankind, — 
outwardly shown in the increased power over nature, 
in the increase of comfort, art, science, literature; and 
this progress is just as obvious in religion as in agri- 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 55 

culture or in housekeeping. The progress in man's 
idea of God is as remarkable as the progress in build- 
ing ships ; for, indeed, the difference between the pop- 
ular conception of a jealous and angry God, who said 
His first word in the Old Testament, and His last word 
in the New Testament, and who will never speak again 
" till the last day," and then only damn to everlasting 
ruin the bulk of mankind, — the difference between 
that conception and the idea of the Infinite God is as 
great as the difference between the " dug-out " of a 
Sandwich Islander and a California clipper, that takes 
all the airs of heaven in its broad arms, and skims over 
the waters with the speed of wind. I see no limit to 
this general power of progressive development in man ; 
none to man's power of religious development. The 
progress did not begin with Moses, nor end with Jesus. 
Neither of these great benefactors was a finality in 
benefaction. This power of growth, which belongs 
to human nature, is only definite in the historical forms 
already produced, but quite indefinite and boundless in 
its capabilities of future expansion. 

In the human faculties, this is the order of rank: 
I have put the body and all its powers at the bottom of 
the scale ; and then, of the spiritual powers, I put the 
intellect the lowest of all ; conscience came next higher ; 
the affections higher yet ; and highest of all, I have 
put the religious faculty. Hence I have always taught 
that the religious faculty was the natural ruler in all 
this commonwealth of man ; yet I would not have it a 
tyrant, to deprive the mind or the conscience or the 
affections of their natural rights. But the importance 
of religion, and its commanding power in every rela- 
tion of life, that is what I have continually preached ; 
and some of you will remember that the first sermon 



56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I addressed to you was on this theme, — the absolute 
necessity of religion for safely conducting the life of 
the individual and the life of the State. I dwelt on 
both of these points, — religion for the individual, and 
religion for the State. You know very well I did not 
begin too soon. Yet I did not then foresee that it 
would soon be denied in America, in Boston, that there 
was any law of God higher than an Act of Congress. 

Woman I have always regarded as the equal of man, 
— more nicely speaking, the equivalent of man ; su- 
perior in some things, inferior in some other ; inferior 
in the lower qualities, in bulk of body and bulk of 
brain ; superior in the higher and nicer qualities, in the 
moral power of conscience, the loving power of affec- 
tion, the religious power of the soul: equal, on the 
whole, and of course entitled to just the same rights as 
man ; to the same rights of mind, body, and estate ; 
the same domestic, social, ecclesiastical, and political 
rights as man, and only kept from the enjoyment of 
these by might, not right ; yet herself destined one day 
to acquire them all. For, as in the development of 
man, the lower faculties come out and blossom first, 
and as accordingly, in the development of society, 
those persons who represent the lower powers first 
get elevated to prominence ; so man, while he is want- 
ing in the superior quality, possesses brute strength 
and brute intellect, and in virtue thereof has had the 
sway in the world. But as the finer qualities come 
later, and the persons who represent those finer quali- 
ties come later into prominence ; so woman is destined 
one day to come forth and introduce a better element 
into the family, society, politics, and Church, and to 
bless us far more than the highest of men are yet 
aware. Out of that mine the fine gold is to be brought 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 67 

which shall sanctify the Church, and save the State. 
That is my idea of man ; and you see how widely it 
differs from the popular ecclesiastical idea of him. 

Then a word for the idea of the relation between 
God and roan. 

I. First, of this on God's part. God is perfect 
Cause and perfect Providence, Father and Mother of 
all men; and He loves each with all of His being, all 
of His almightiness. His all-knowingness, all-righteous- 
ness, all-lovingness, and all-holiness. He knew at the 
beginning all the future history of mankind, and of 
each man, — of Jesus of Nazareth and Judas Iscariot ; 
and prepared for all, so that a perfect result shall be 
worked out at last for each soul. The means for the 
purposes of God in the human world are the natural 
powers of man, his faculties ; those faculties which are 
fettered by instinct, and those also which are winged 
by free-will. Hence while, with my idea of God, I am 
sure of the end, and have asked of all men an infinite 
faith that the result would be brought out right by 
the forces of God, — with my idea of man, I have 
also pointed out the human means ; and, while I was 
sure of the end, and called for divine faith, I have also 
been sure of the means, and called for human work. 
Here are two propositions: first, that God so orders 
things in His providence, that a perfect result shall 
be wrought out for each ; and, second, that He gives 
a certain amount of freedom to every man. I believe 
both of these propositions ; I have presented both as 
strongly as I could. I do not mean to say that I have 
logically reconciled these two propositions, with all 
their consequences, in my own mind, and still less to 
the minds of others. There may seem to be a contra- 



58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

diction. Perhaps I do not know how to reconcile the 
seeming contradiction, and yet I believe both proposi- 
tions. 

From this it follows that the history of the world 
is no astonishment to God; that the vice of a Judas, 
or the virtue of a Jesus, is not a surprise to Him. 
Error and sin are what stumbling is to a child; acci- 
dents of development, which will in due time be over- 
come. As the finite mother does not hate the sound 
and strong boy, who sometimes stumbles in learning to 
walk ; nor the sound, but weak boy, who stumbles often ; 
nor yet the crippled boy, who stumbles continually, 
and only stumbles ; but as she seeks to help and teach 
all three, so the Infinite Mother of us all does not hate 
the well-born, who seldom errs ; nor the ill-bom, who 
often transgresses ; nor yet hate the moral idiot, even 
the person that is born organized for kidnapping; but 
will, in the long run of eternity, bring all these safely 
home, — the first murderer and the last kidnapper, both 
reformed and blessed. Suffering for error and sin is 
a fact in this world. I make no doubt it will be a fact 
in all stages of development in the next world. But 
mark this : it is not from the anger or weakness of Grod 
that we suffer; it is for purposes worthy of His per- 
fection and His love. Suffering is not a devil's malice, 
but God's medicine. I can never believe that evil is a 
finality with God. 

II. Then see the relation on man's part. Provi- 
dence is what God owes to man ; and man has an abso- 
lutely inalienable right to the infinite providence of 
God. No sin ever can alienate and nullify that right. 
To say that it could, would seem to me blasphemy 
against the Most High God ; for it would imply a lack 
of some element of perfection on God's part ; a lack 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 59 

of power, of wisdom, of justice, of love, or of holi- 
ness, — fidelity to Himself. It would make God finite, 
and not infinite. 

Religion is what man owes to God, as God owes 
providence to man. And with me religion is something 
exceedingly wide, covering the whole surface, and in- 
cluding the whole depth of human life. 

The internal part I have called piety. By that I 
mean, speaking synthetically, the love of God as God, 
with all the mind and conscience, heart and soul : speak- 
ing analytically, the love of truth and beauty, with 
the intellect; the love of justice, with the conscience; 
the love of persons, with the affections ; the love of 
holiness, with the soul. For all these faculties find in 
God their perfect object, — the all-true, all^ beautiful, 
all- just, all-loving, and all-holy God, the Father and 
Mother of all. 

The more external part of religion I have called 
morality; that is, keeping all the natural laws which 
God has writ for the body and spirit, for mind and 
conscience and heart and soul ; and I consider that it is 
just as much a part of religion to keep every law which 
God has writ in our frame, as it is to keep the Ten 
Commandments; and just as much our duty to keep 
the law which He has thus published in human nature, 
as if the voice of God spoke out of heaven, and said, 
"Thou shalt," and "Thou shalt not." Man's con- 
sciousness proclaims God's law. It is nature on which 
I have endeavored to bottom my teachings. Of course 
this morality includes the subordination of the body 
to the spirit, and, in the spirit, the subordination of 
the lower faculties to the higher; so that the religious 
element shall correct the partiality of affection, the 
coldness of justice, and the shortsightedness of intel- 



60 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

lectual calculation ; and, still more, shall rule and keep 
in rank the appetites of the body. But in this the 
soul must not be a tyrant over the body ; for, as there 
is a holy spirit, so there is likewise a holy flesh; all 
its natural appetites are sacred; and the religious fac- 
ulty is not to domineer over the mind, nor over the 
conscience, nor over the affections of man. All these 
powers are to be co-ordinated into one great harmony, 
where the parts are not sacrificed to the whole, nor the 
whole to any one part. So, in short, man's religious 
duty is to serve God by the normal use, development, 
and en j oyment of every limb of the body, every faculty 
of the spirit, every particle of power which we pro- 
gressively acquire and possess over matter or over man. 

The ordinances of that religion are, inwardly, 
prayer of penitence and aspiration, the joy and de- 
light in God and His gifts; and, outwardly, they are 
the daily works of life, by fire-side and street-side and 
field-side, — " the charities that soothe and heal and 
bless." These are the ordinances, and I know no 
other. 

Of course, to determine the religiousness of a man, 
the question is not merely — what does he believe.? 
but — has he been faithful to himself in coming to his 
belief.? It may be possible that a man comes to the 
conviction of atheism, but yet has been faithful to 
himself. It may be that the man believes the highest 
words taught by Jesus, and yet has been faithless to 
Qiimself. It is a fact which deserves to be held up 
everlastingly before men, that religion begins in faith- 
fulness to yourself. I have known men whom the 
world called infidels, and mocked at, who yet were faith- 
ful among the faithfulest. Their intellectual con- 
clusions I would have trodden under my feet; but 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 61 

their faithfulness I would fall on my knees to do 
honor to. 

Then the question is not how a man dies, but how he 
lives. It is very easy for a dying man to be opiated by 
the doctor and minister to such a degree that his mouth 
shall utter anything you will ; and then, though he was 
the most hardened of wretches, you shall say " he died 
a saint ! " The common notion of the value of a little 
snivelling and whimpering on a death-bed is too dan- 
gerous, as well as too poor, to be taught for science in 
the midst of the nineteenth century. 

I have taken it for granted also, that religion gave 
to men the highest, dearest, and deepest of all enjoy- 
ments and delights ; that it beautified every relation in 
human life, and shed the light of heaven into the very 
humblest house, into the lowliest heart, and cheered, 
and soothed, and blessed the very hardest lot and the 
most cruel fate in mortal life. This is not only my 
word, but your hearts bear witness to the truth of 
that teaching, and all human history will tell the same 
thing. 

These have been the chief doctrines which I have set 
forth in a thousand forms. You see at once how very 
widely this differs from the common scheme of the- 
ology in which most of us were bom and bred. There 
is a vast difference in the idea of God, of man, and of 
the relation between the two. 

Of course I do not believe in a devil, eternal tor- 
ment, nor in a particle of absolute evil in God's world 
or in God. I do not believe there ever was a miracle, 
or ever will be: everywhere I find law, — the constant 
mode of operation of the Infinite God. I do not be- 
lieve in the miraculous inspiration of the Old Testament 



62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

or the New Testament. I do not believe that the Old 
Testament was God's first word, nor the New Testa- 
ment His last. The Scriptures are no finality to me. 
Inspiration is a perpetual fact. Prophets and apos- 
tles did not monopolize the Father: He inspires men 
to-day as much as heretofore. In nature, also, God 
speaks for ever. Are not these flowers new words of 
God.f^ Are not the fossils underneath our feet, hun- 
dreds of miles thick, old words of God, spoken millions 
of milhons of years before Moses began to be? 

I do not believe the miraculous origin of the He- 
brew Church, or the Buddhist Church, or the Christian 
Church; nor the miraculous character of Jesus. I 
take not the Bible for my master, nor yet the Church ; 
nor even Jesus of Nazareth for my master. I feel not 
at all bound to believe what any church says is true, nor 
what any writer in the Old or New Testament declares 
true; and I am ready to believe that Jesus taught, as 
I think, eternal torment, the existence of a devil, and 
that he himself should ere long come back in the clouds 
of heaven. I do not accept these things on his au- 
thority. I try all things by the human faculties, — 
intellectual things by the intellect, moral things by the 
conscience, affectlonal things by the affections, and 
religious things by the soul. Has God given us any- 
thing better than our nature ? How can we serve Him 
and His purposes but by its normal use.^^ 

But, at the same time, I reverence the Christian 
Church for the great good it has done for mankind; 
I reverence the Mahometan Church for the good it 
has done, — a far less good. I reverence the Scrip- 
tures for every word of truth they teach, — and they 
are crowded with truth and beauty, from end to end. 
Above all men do I bow my face before that august 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 63 

personage, Jesus of Nazareth, who seems to have had 
the strength of man and the softness of woman, — 
man's mighty, wide-grasping, reasoning, calculating, 
and poetic mind; and woman's conscience, woman's 
heart, and woman's faith in God. He is my best his- 
toric ideal of human greatness ; not without errors, not 
without the stain of his times, and, I presume, of course 
not without sins, — for men without sins exist in the 
dreams of girls, not in real fact; you never saw such 
a one, nor I, and we never shall. But Jesus of Naz- 
areth is my best historic ideal of a religious man, and 
revolutionizes the vulgar conception of human great- 
ness. What are your Caesars, Alexanders, Cromwells, 
Napoleons, Bacons, and Leibnitz, and Kant, and 
Shakespeare, and Milton even, — men of immense brain 
and will, — what are they all to this person of large and 
delicate intellect, of a great conscience, and heart and 
soul far mightier yet? 

With such ideas of man, of God, and of the relation 
between them, how all things must look from my point 
of view ! I cannot praise a man because he is rich. 
While I deplore the vulgar rage for wealth, and warn 
men against the popular lust of gold, which makes 
money the triune deity of so many men, I yet see the 
function of riches, and have probably preached in 
favor of national and individual accumulation thereof 
more than any other man in all New England, as I 
see the necessity of a material basis for the spiritual 
development of man ; but I never honor a live man be- 
cause he is rich, and should not think of ascribing to 
a dead one all the Christian virtues because he died 
with a large estate, and his faith, hope, and charity 
were only faith in money, hope for money, and love 



64j autobiography 

of money. T should not think such a man entitled to 
the praise of all the Christian virtues. 

And again, I should never praise or honor a man 
simply because he had a great office, nor because he 
had the praise of men ; nor should I praise and honor 
a man because he had the greatest intellect in the world, 
and the widest culture of that intellect. I should take 
the intellect for what it was worth ; but I should honor 
the just conscience of a man who carried a hod up the 
tallest ladder in Boston ; I should honor the loving 
heart of a girl who went without her dinner to feed 
a poor boy ; the faith in God which made a poor woman 
faithful to every daily duty, while poverty and sick- 
ness stared her in the face, and a drunken husband 
smote her in the heart, — a faith which conquered 
despair, and still kept loving on. I should honor any 
one of these things more than the intellect of Caesar 
and Bacon and Hannibal all united into one; and you 
see why ; because I put intellect at the bottom of the 
scale, and these higher faculties at the other end. 

I put small value on the common " signs of re- 
ligion." Church-going is not morality: it is compli- 
ance with common custom. It may be grievous 
self-denial, and often is. Reading the Bible daily 
or weekly is not piety ; it may help to it. The " sac- 
raments " are no signs of religion to me, they are 
dispensations of water, of wine, of bread, and no more. 
I do not think a few hours of crying on a sick-bed 
proves that a notorious miser or voluptuary, a hard, 
worldly fellow, for fifty years, has been a saint all that 
time, any more than one mild day in March proves 
that there was no ice in Labrador all winter. 

With such views, you see In what esteem I must be 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 65 

held by society, Church, and State. I cannot be oth- 
erwise than hated. This is the necessity of my posi- 
tion, — that I must be hated; and, accordingly, I be- 
lieve there is no living man in America so widely, 
abundantly, and deeply hated as I have been, and 
still continue to be. In the last twelve years I fear 
there has been more ecclesiastical preaching in the 
United States against me than against war and slav- 
ery. Those that hate any particular set of reformers 
hate me because I am with that particular set; with 
each and with all. I do not blame men for this ; not 
so much as some others have done on my account. I 
pity very much more than I blame ; not with the pity 
of contempt, I hope, but with the pity of apprecia- 
tion, and with the pity of love. I see in the circum- 
stances of men very much to palliate the offenses of 
their character; and I long ago learned not to hate 
men who hated me. It was not hard to learn; I be- 
gan early, — I had a mother who taught me. 

You know the actual condition of the American 
Church, — I mean all the ecclesiastical institutions of 
the land — that it has a theology which cannot stand 
the test of reason; and accordingly it very wisely re- 
solved to throw reason overboard before it began its 
voyage. You know that all Christendom, with a small 
exception, professes a belief in the devil, in eternal 
torment; and of course all Christendom, with scarce 
any exception, professes a belief in a God who has 
those qualities which created a devil and eternal tor- 
ment. 

You know the morality of the American Church. 

The clergy are a body of kindly and charitable men. 

Some virtues, which are not very easy to possess, they 

have in advance of any other class of men amongst 
XII— 5 



66 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

us ; they are the virtues which belong to their position. 
I believe they are, as a body, a good deal better than 
their creed. I know men often say a man is not so 
good as his creed; I never knew a minister who was 
half so bad as Calvinism. I surely have no prejudice 
against John Calvin, when I say he was an uncom- 
monly hard man, with a great head and a rigorous 
conscience; but John Calvin himself was a great deal 
better than the Calvinistic idea of God. I should 
give up in despair with that idea of God : I should not 
cast myself on His mercy, for there would be no mercy 
in Him. 

But the preaching of the churches is not adapted 
to produce the higher kinds of morality. Certain 
humble but needful forms thereof the church helps, 
and very much indeed. On the whole it blocks the 
wheels of society backwards, so that society does not 
run down hill; but on the other hand, it blocks them 
forward, so that it is harder to get up ; and, while 
you must run over the church to get far down hill, 
you must also run over it to get up. It favors cer- 
tain lower things of morality: higher things it hin- 
ders. 

Here are two great forms of vice, — natural forms. 
One comes from the period of passion ; and, when 
it is fully ripe, it is the vice of the debauchee: the 
other comes from the period of calculation ; and, when 
it is fully rotten, it is the sin of the hunker.^ Now, 
the churches are not very severe on the first kind of 
vice. They are very severe on unpopular degrees of 
it, not on the popular degree. They do service, how- 
ever, in checking the unpopular degree. But the 
sin of the hunkers, I think, the churches uni- 
formly uphold and support. The popular sins of 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 67 

calculation are pretty sure to get the support of the 
pulpit on their side. Why so? They can pay for it 
in money and in praise. I know but few exceptions 
to that rule. 

Then there are certain other merely ecclesiastical 
vices, mere conventional vices; not sins, not transgres- 
sions of any natural law. These the churches regard 
as great sins. Such are doubt and disbelief of ecclesi- 
astical doctrine; neglect of ecclesiastical ordinances, — 
of the " Sabbath day," as it is called ; neglect of the 
great bodily sacrament, church-going, and the like. 
All these offenses the churches preach against with 
great power. 

Accordingly the churches hinder the highest moral- 
ity, favor the lower. The highest morality is thought 
superfluous in society, contemptible in politics, and an 
abomination in the church. 

Just now I learned through the newspapers that 
John Wesley's pulpit has been brought to America, 
and it is thought a great gain. But if John Wes- 
ley's voice, declaring aloud that slavery is " the sum of 
all villanies," were to be brought, it would presently 
be excommunicated from the Methodist Church. I 
understand that the chair in which the " Shepherd of 
Salisbury Plains " once sat, has likewise arrived in 
America ; and the tub, I think it is, which belonged to 
the " Dairyman's Daughter," has also immigrated ; 
and these will be thought much more valuable ecclesi- 
astical furniture than the piety of the Shepherd of 
Salisbury Plains, and the self-denial of the Dairy- 
man's Daughter. It is popular to sprinkle babies with 
water from the Jordan ; unpopular to baptize men 
with the spirit of Jesus, and with fire from the Holy 
Ghost. 



68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

My preaching has been mainly positive, of truth 
and duty in their appHcation to Hfe: but sometimes 
negative and critical, even militant. This was un- 
avoidable ; for I must show how my scheme would work 
when brought face to face with the Church, society, 
and the State. 

So I have sometimes preached against the evil doc- 
trines of the popular theology ; its false idea of God, 
of man, and of religion. This popular theology con- 
tains many excellent things : but its false things, taken 
as a whole, are the greatest curse of the nation ; a 
greater curse than drunkenness, than the corruption of 
political parties; greater than slavery. It stands in 
the way of every advance. Would you reform the 
criminal, — along comes theology, with its " Whoso 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 
Would you improve the Church, — men say, " You 
must listen to the Church, but not reform it; it must 
reform you, and not you it." Would you elevate 
woman to her rights, — the popular theology quotes 
St. Paul till you are almost sick of his name. Would 
you refuse obedience to a wicked law, and quote Jesus, 
and every great martyr from the beginning of the 
world, — the popular theology meets you with 
" Whoso resisteth the powers that be, resisteth the 
ordinance of God." If you wish to abolish slavery, — 
ministers come out with the old story of Ham and 
Noah, and justify American bondage on an old my- 
thology, writ three thousand years ago, nobody knows 
where, nobody knows by whom, nobody knows for what 
purpose. All the garments possessed by the children 
of Shem and Japheth are too scant to hide the shame 
of the popular theology. At this day it bears the 
same relation to human progress, that heathenism and 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 69 

Judaism bore in the first and second and third and 
fourth centuries after Christ. I confess that, while 
I respect the clergy as much as any class of men, 1. 
hate the false ideas of the popular theology, and hate 
them with my body and with my spirit, with my mind 
and my conscience, with my heart and my soul ; and I 
hate nothing so much as I hate the false ideas of the 
popular theology. They are the greatest curse of. 
this nation. 

Then I have preached against slavery; and to m& 
slavery appears in two views. 

First, it is a measure to be looked on as a part of 
the national housekeeping. We are to ask if it will 
pay; what its effect will be on the material earnings 
of the nation. And when we propose to extend slav- 
ery to a new territory, this is the question: Will you 
have slavery, and your land worth five dollars an acre, 
as in South Carolina; or will you have freedom, and 
your land worth thirty dollars an acre, as in Massachu- 
setts.? Will you have slavery, and the average earn- 
ings of all the people one dollar a week; or freedom, 
and the average earnings four dollars a week? Will 
you have slavery, and the worst cultivated lands, the 
rudest houses, and the poorest towns ; or will you have 
freedom, and the nicest agriculture, the best manu- 
factures, the richest houses, and the most sumptuous 
towns.? Looking at it barely as a part of housekeep- 
ing, if I were a monarch, I should not like to say to 
California, Texas, and New Mexico : " You might 
have institutions that would make your land worth 
thirty dollars an acre, and enable your people to earn 
four dollars a week; but you shall have institutions 
that will make your land worth five dollars an acre, 
and the average earnings of the people one dollar a 



70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

week." I like money too well to take off three dol- 
lars from every four that might be earned, and twenty- 
five dollars from every acre of land worth thirty. I 
should think twice, if I were the President of the 
United States, before I did anything to bring about 
that result. 

That is not all. Slavery is a principle, to be looked 
on as a part of our national religion: for our actions 
are our worship of God, if pious; of the devil, if 
impious. It is to be estimated by its conformity to 
natural law. From my point of view it is against all 
natural right, all natural religion, and is, as John 
Wesley said, " the sum of all villanies." When the 
question comes up, Shall we introduce slavery into a 
new territory.? this is the question to be asked. Shall 
the laboring population be reduced to the legal rank 
of cattle; bought, bred, branded as cattle? Shall the 
husband have no right to his wife's society .'' Shall 
the maiden have no protection for her own virtue? 
Shall the wife be torn from her husband? Shall a 
mother be forced to cut the throats of four of her 
children, or else see them sold into slavery ? — a case 
that has actually happened. If I were a monarch, I 
should not like to levy such a tax on any people under 
my dominion. If I were President of the United 
States, I should not like to say to California, New 
Mexico, or old Mexico, " I intend to reduce you to 
that position ; " and I think if I did, and stood up be- 
fore you afterwards, you would have something to say 
about it. I should not like to do this for the sake of 
being President of the United States. 

Now, I must confess that I hate slavery ; and I do 
not hate it any the less since it has become so popular 
in Boston, and, after a belief in the finality of the 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 71 

compromise measures has been made the sine qua non 
of a man's social, pohtical, and ecclesiastical respecta- 
bihty. I always hated it, and hate it all the worse to- 
day for what it has done. 

Then I have preached against oppression in every 
form : the tyranny of man over woman ; of popular 
opinion over the individual reason, conscience, and 
soul. I have preached against the tyranny of public 
law, when the law was wicked. Standing in a pulpit, 
preaching in the name of God, could I call on you 
to blaspheme the name of God for the sake of obeying 
a wicked statute which men had made? When I do 
that, may my right arm drop from my shoulder, and 
my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! I have 
preached against the tyranny which takes advantage 
of men's misfortunes, and with the sponge of illegal 
usury sucks up the earnings of honest men ; against 
the tyranny of the few over the many in Europe, and 
of the many over the few in America. I love free- 
dom of thought and of action; and I claim for every 
man the right to think, not as I do, but as he must or 
may. 

Then I have preached against intemperance, against 
making rum, selling rum, and drinking rum. The 
evil of intemperance has been under my eyes every 
Sunday. There is not a man before me, not a woman 
before me, not a girl or boy before me, but has lost 
some dear and valued relative, within not many years, 
slain by this monstrous vampire, which sucks and 
poisons the body of America. The poor men that I 
feed have been made paupers by rum ; of the funerals 
that I attend, rum, with its harsh hammer, has often 
nailed down the coffin-lid; and of the marriages that 
I have helped to solemnize, how often has the wife 



7^ AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

been left worse than a widow. Since intemperance has 
become so popular in Boston; since it has got the 
mayor and aldermen on its side, and while every thirty- 
fifth voter in Boston is a licensed seller of rum; when 
it is invested with such strength, and gets possession 
of the House of Representatives, — I have preached 
against it all the more. I know, from the little town 
where I was bom, as well as this large one, what a curse 
and blight drunkenness is. 

Then I have preached against war, and I suppose, 
before long, I shall have a new occasion to lift up my 
voice against it once more. 

Now, with such ideas, and such a style of preaching, 
I could not be popular. Hated I must needs be. 
How could it be otherwise.^ Men who knew no God 
but a jealous God; no human nature but total de- 
pravity ; no religion but the ordinances of baptism, 
the Lord's Supper, and reverence for ancient words of 
holy men, and the like ; no truth but public opinion ; no 
justice but public law ; no earthly good above respecta- 
bility, — they must needs hate me, and I do not won- 
der at it. I fear there is not a theological newspaper 
in the land that has not delivered its shot in my face. 
You know how the pulpits, at various times, have rung 
out with indignation against me, and what names you 
and I have been called. 

Well, I have not yet fired a shot in my own defense. 
Not one. I have replied to no attack, to no calumny. 
I have had too much else to do. In comparison with 
the idea which I endeavor to set forth, I am nothing, 
and may go to the ground, so that the truth goes on. 

When I first came to stand in this place, many of 
my Unitarian brethren of the city, and elsewhere, com- 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 73 

plained publicly and privately, that they were held 
responsible for my theological opinions^ which they 
did not share; and that they had no opportunity to 
place themselves right before the public. To give 
them an opportunity and occasion for developing the 
theological antithesis betwixt their doctrines and my 
own, and to let the public see In what things they all 
agreed, and In what they unitedly differed from me, 
I published " A Letter to the Boston Association of 
Congregational Ministers, touching certain Matters 
of their Theology." But, alas ! they have not an- 
swered the letter, nor informed the public of the things 
in which they " all agree with each other," and wherein 
they all differ from me. 

Men predicted our defeat. I believe six months 
was the longest space allotted to us to live and repent ; 
that was the extent of our " mortal probation." We 
ought not to think harshly of men for this. I suppose 
they did the best they could with their light. But we 
went on, and continued to live. It Is a little curious 
to notice the reasons assigned by the press and the pul- 
pit, for the audience that came together. For the 
first six months I took pains to collect the opinions of 
the theological press and pulpit. I would say that, 
with this exception, I have seldom read the various de- 
nunciations which have been written against you and 
me, and which have been sent, I hope with the best 
Intentions, from all parts of the United States. When 
I have received them, and seen their character from a 
line or two, — and the postage was seldom paid,^ — I 
have immediately put them in the safest of all places, — 
committed them to the flames. But, for this period of 
six months, during which our ecclesiastical existence 
was likely to continue, I Inquired what the opinions 
of the press and pulpit were. 



74* AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

The first reason assigned for the audience coming 
together was this: They came from vain curiosity, 
having itching ears to hear " what this babbler say- 
eth." 

Then it was said men came here because I taught 
" utter irrehgion, blank immorality ; " that I had *' no 
love of God, no fear of God, no love of man ; " and that 
you thought if you could get rid of your conscience and 
soul, and trample immortality underfoot, and were sat- 
isfied there was no God, you should " have a very nice 
time of it here and hereafter." Men read history very 
poorly. It is not ministers who falsify the word of 
God that are ever popular with the great mass of 
men. Never, never! Not so. The strictest, hardest 
preacher draws crowds of men together, when he speaks 
in the name of religion and God's higher law; but 
eloquent Voltaire gets most of his admirers of scoffing 
among the cultivated, the refined, and the rich ; atheism 
is never democratic. 

Then it was declared that I was a shrewd, practical 
man, perfectly " well posted up " in everything which 
took place; knew how to make investments, and get 
very large returns: unluckily, it has not been for my- 
self that this has been true. And it was said that I 
collected large-headed, practical men to hear me, and 
that you were a " boisterous assembly." 

Then, that I was a learned man, and gave learned 
discourses on ecclesiastical history or political history, 
— things which have not been found very attractive 
in the churches hitherto. 

Then again, that I was a philosopher, with a wise 
head, and taught men " theological metaphysics ; " 
and so a large company of men seemed all at once 
smitten with a panic for metaphysics and abstract 
preaching. It was never so before. 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 75 

Then it was reported that I was a witty man, and 
shot nicely feathered arrows very deftly into the mark ; 
and that men came to attend the sharp-shooting of a 
wit. 

Then there was a seventh thing, — that I was an elo- 
quent man; and I remember certain diatribes against 
the folly of " filling churches with eloquence." 

Then again, it was charged against me that I was 
a philanthropist, and taught the love of men, but did 
" not teach at all the love of God ; " and that men 
really loved to love one another, and so came. 

Then it was thought that I was a sentimentalist, 
and tickled the ears of " weak women," who came to 
delight themselves, and be filled full of " poetry and 
love." 

The real thing they did not seem to hit; that I 
preached an idea of God, of man, and of religion, 
which commended itself to the nature of 'mankind. 

From the churches in general I expected little ; but 
I have found much deep and real kindness from fel- 
low-ministers of all denominations, — Unitarian, Uni- 
versalist, Baptist, Methodist, Calvinist, and Christian. 
On the whole, — I am sorry to say it, — I have had less 
friendship shown me by the Unitarian sect in Amer- 
ica, all things considered, than by the other sects. The 
heartiest abuse has come from my own brethren, and 
the stingiest testimonials for any merit. That was to 
be expected. I was a Unitarian: that is, I utterly 
rejected the Trinitarian theology; I associated chiefly 
with Unitarian clergymen. When my theological 
opinions became known to the wider public, some 
twelve years ago, they were declared " unsafe " and 
" dangerous " by the stricter sects. So an outcry was 
raised, not only against me, but also against the Uni- 



76 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

tarian sect. In self-defense, many Unitarian minis- 
ters, who had long been accused of being " hag-ridden 
by the orthodox," turned round, and denounced both 
my opinions and me, sometimes in the bitterest and 
most cruel fashion. They said, " He must be put 
down." They sought to " silence " me, to exclude me 
from the journals and the pulpits of the sect, to dis- 
suade lyceum committees from asking me to lecture, 
and to prevent my speaking in Boston. Nay, some 
took pains to prevent my parishioners at West Rox- 
bury from attending service there ; they tried to hinder 
booksellers from publishing my works ; and twelve 
years ago I could not find a publisher to put his name 
to the title-page of the first edition of my " Discourse 
of the Transient and Permanent in Christianity ; " 
the Swedenborgian printers generously volunteered 
their name. The commonest courtesies of life were 
carefully withheld. I was treated like a leprous Jew. 
Studious attempts at deliberate insult were frequently 
made by Unitarian clergymen. I soon found, that, if 
theological odium had been legally deprived of the 
arrows in its ancient quiver, it had yet lost none of the 
old venom from its heart. The Unitarians denied the 
great principle they had so manfully contended for, — 
free spiritual individuality in religion. I must say 
I think they made a mistake. As a measure, their con- 
duct was inexpedient; as a principle, it was false and 
wrong; as priestcraft, it was impolitic; as ethics, it 
was wicked: they hurt their own hand in breaking the 
Golden Rule over my head. But there were some very 
honorable exceptions in the denomination ; men who 
lost sectarian favor by adhering to a universal princi- 
ple of morals; and let me say that I think no sect in 
Christendom would, in such a case, have treated a 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 77 

" heretic " in their own bosom with so Httle harshness 
as the Unitarians have shown to me. They have at least 
the tradition of liberahtj, which no other sect pos- 
sesses. In England they have met my opinions with 
philosophical fairness, if not with partiality, and 
treated me with more consideration and esteem than I 
ever ventured to claim for myself.^ 

All over the land I have found kindly and warm- 
hearted men and women, who have shed their dew-drop 
of sympathy upon me, just when my flower hung its 
head and collapsed, and seemed ready to perish. 
There is one clergyman to whom I owe an especial obli- 
gation. He has often stood in this place, and, for 
conscience' sake, has made greater and more difiicult 
sacrifices than I. He began as an evangelist to the 
poor in Boston ; carrying them the body's bread in his 
left hand, and Heaven's own manna in his right; and 
he now sheds broader charity from the same noble and 
generous heart. " A friend in need is a friend in- 
deed ; " and, if his face were not before me at this 
moment, I should say what his modesty would be 
pained to bear ; but it is what none of you need to be 
told.*< 

It is eight years since first we came together; and 
that is a long time in American history. America 
has gained four new States in that time; a territory 
bigger than the old thirteen; and got all this new 
country by wickedness. We have spread slavery anew 
over a country larger than the empire of France ; have 
fought the Mexican War, so notorious for its iniquity. 
We have seen both political parties become the tools 
of slavery ; the Democratic perhaps a little worse than 
the Whig. We have seen the Fugitive Slave Bill wel- 
comed in Boston, a salute of one hundred guns fired 



78 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

to honor its passage; and a man kidnapped out of 
the birth-place of Samuel Adams, to the delight of 
the controlling men thereof. You and I have repeat- 
edly transgressed the laws of the land, in order to 
hinder " Unitarian Christians " of Boston, supported 
by their clergy, from sending our fellowshippers into 
the most hideous slavery in the world. 

Great men have died, — Jackson, Adams, Taylor, 
Calhoun, Clay, Webster. What changes have taken 
place in Europe in this brief eight years ! The old 
pope has died. The new pope promised to be a philan- 
thropist, and turned out what we now see. All of 
royalty, all of the king, " was carried out from Paris 
in a single street cab ; " and a few days later " Na- 
poleon the Little " came in, furnished with nothing 
but " a tame eagle and a pocketful of debts." We 
have seen France rise up to the highest point of sub- 
limity, and declare government to be founded on the 
unchanging law of God; and the same France, with 
scarcely the firing of a musket, drop down to the bot- 
tom of the ridiculous, and become the slave of the 
stupidest and vulgarest even of vulgar kings. We 
have seen all Western Europe convulsed with revolu- 
tions; the hope of political freedom brightening in 
men's hearts ; and now see a heavier despotism as the 
present result of the defeated efFort. Kossuth is an 
exile ; and a ruined debauchee is the " imperial rep- 
resentative of morality " on the throne of Saint Louis. 

I have been your minister almost eight years. Some 
of our members have withdrawn, and walk no more 
with us. I trust they were true to their conscience, 
and went where wiser and abler and better men can 
feed their souls as I cannot. I have never thought 
it a religious duty for any man to listen to my poor 
words ; how poor nobody knows so well as L 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 79 

In myself there are many things which I lament. 
It has been a great grief to me, as I have looked upon 
your faces, that I was no worthier to speak to you: 
that I had not a larger intellectual power, by birth and 
culture, to honor the ideas withal ; and, still more, that, 
in conscience and heart and soul, I was so poor. 

One thing in my ministry has troubled me a good 
deal. Coming from a little country parish, with the 
habits of a country minister; knowing every man, 
woman, and child therein ; knowing the thoughts of all 
that had any thoughts, and the doubts of such as had 
strength to raise a doubt, — I have found it painful 
to preach to men whom I did not know in the intimacy 
of private life. For the future, I hope it will be possi- 
ble for me to know you better, and more intimately in 
your homes. 

I must have committed many errors. When an old 
man I trust I shall see them, and some time point them 
out, that others may be warned by my follies. You 
must know my character better than I know it. My 
private actions I know best; but you see me in joy 
and sorrow, in indignation and penitence, in sermon 
and in prayer, when there is no concealment in a 
man's face. Hold a medal, worn smooth, before the 
fire, and the old stamp comes out as before. Conceal- 
ment lifts her veil before any strong emotion which 
renews the face. You must know me better than I 
know myself. I also know you. I have tasted your 
kindness In public and private; not only from women, 
— who have always shown the readiest sympathy for 
a new religious development, from the time when Pha- 
raoh's daughter drew a slave's child out of the Nile, to 
that day when a woman poured the box of ointment 
over the head of Jesus, — but also from men ; not only 



80 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

from young men, but from those whose heads have 
blossomed anew with the venerable flowers of age. 

You, my friends, have been patient with my weak- 
nesses, kind and affectionate. I think no man ever 
had truer, warmer, or more loving friends. As I have 
looked round on your faces, before the commencement 
of service; as I have sat and seen the young and the 
old, the rich and the poor, the joyous and the sad, 
come together; as I have gathered up the outward ele- 
ments of my morning prayer from the various faces 
and dissimilar histories, which, at a single glance, 
stood before me, — my friends, I have thanked my God 
it was my lot to stand here; and yet have reproached 
myself again and again, that I was no worthier of the 
trust, and have asked before God, " Who is sufficient 
for these things ? " 

I know how often I must have wounded your feel- 
ings, in speaking of the political conduct of America ; 
for I have endeavored to honor what was right, and 
expose to censure what was wrong, in both parties, and 
in the third party during its existence. I have not 
passed over the sins of trade. I have preached on all 
the exciting and agitating topics of the day. I won- 
der not that some friends were offended. I only won- 
der that such a multitude has still continued to listen. 
Verily, there is little to attract you in these sur- 
roundings: public opinion pronounced it infamous to 
be here. It was the ideas of absolute religion that drew 
you here through ill report. The highest and the best 
things I have had to offer have always found the 
warmest welcome in your heart. 

We must bid farewell to these old walls. They have 
not been very comfortable. All the elements have 
been hostile. The winter's cold has chilled us; the 



ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 81 

summer's heat has burned us; the air has often been 
poisoned with contaminations, a whole week long in 
collecting ; and the element of earth, the dirt, that was 
everywhere. As I have stood here, I have often seen 
the spangles of opera-dancers, who beguiled the previ- 
ous night, lying on the floor beside me; and have 
picked them up in imagination, and woven them into 
my sermon and psalm and prayer. The associations 
commonly connected with this hall have not been of 
the most agreeable character. Dancing monkeys and 
" Ethiopian serenaders " making vulgar merriment 
out of the ignorance and the wretchedness of the Amer- 
ican slave, have occupied this spot during the week, 
and left their marks, their instruments, and their breath 
behind them on Sunday. Could we complain of such 
things? I have thought we were very well provided 
for, and have given God thanks for these old, but 
spacious walls. The early Christians worshiped in 
c-averns of the ground. In the tombs of dead men did 
the only live religion find its dwelling-place at Rome. 
The star of Christianity " first stood still over a sta- 
ble." These old walls will always be dear and sacred 
to me. Even the weather-stains thereon are to me 
more sacred than the pictures which the genius of 
Angelo painted in the Sistine Chapel, or those with 
which Raphael adorned the Vatican. To me they 
are associated with some of the holiest aspirations 
and devoutest hours of my mortal life, and with the 
faces which welcomed every noble word I ever learned 
to speak. 

Well, we must bid them farewell. Yonder clock 
will no more remind me how long I have trespassed on 
your patience, when your faces tell no such tale. We 

will bid these old walls, these dusty lights, farewell. 
XII— 6 



82 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Our old companion, the organ, has gone before us ; and 
again shall we hear its voice. 

But what have I been to you in all this time? You 
have lent me your ears ; I have taken your hearts too, 
I believe. But let me ask this of you : have I done you 
good, or harm? Have I taught you, and helped you, 
to reverence God the more; to have a firmer and 
heartier faith in Him; to love Him the deeper, and 
keep His laws the better; to love man the more? If 
so, then indeed has my work been blessed, and I have 
been a minister to you. But if it has not been so ; 
if your reverence and faith in God grow cold under 
my preaching, and your zeal for man dwindles and 
passes away, — then turn off from me, and leave me 
to the cold gilding and empty magnificence of our 
new place of worship ; and go you and seek some other, 
who, with a loftier aspiring mind, shall point upwards 
towards God, and, with a holier heart, shall bid you 
love Him. But, above all things, let me entreat you 
that no reverence for me shall ever blind your eyes 
to any fault of mine, to any error of doctrine. If 
there are sins in my life, copy them not. Remember 
them at first, drop the tear of charity on them, and 
blot them out. 



IV 



THE POSITION AND DUTY OF A 
MINISTER 

" I know whom I have believed." — 2 Timothy i. 12, 

In the development of mankind, all the great desires 
get some instrument to help achieve their end — a 
machine for the private hand, an institution for the 
mind and conscience, the heart and soul, of millions 
of men. Thus all the great desires, great duties, great 
rights, become organized in human history ; provided 
with some instrument to reach out and achieve their 
end. This is true of the finite desires ; true also of 
the infinite. 

Man would be fed and clothed: behold the tools of 
agriculture and the arts, — the plough and the fac- 
tory. He would be housed and comforted: behold 
the hamlet and the town. Man and maid would love 
one another; see the home and the family, — the in- 
strument of their love. Thousands want mutual suc- 
cor; there is society, with its neighborly charities, and 
duties every day. Millions of men ask defense, guid- 
ance, unity of action ; behold the State, with its con- 
stitutions and its laws, its officers, and all its array of 
political means. These are finite ; a lengthening of 
the arm, a widening of the understanding; tools for 
the conscience and the heart. Thereby I lay hold of 
matter and lay hold of man, and get the uses of the 
material world and of my brother men. 

These are finite, for to-day. But the same rule ap- 
plies to the infinite desires. Man would orient him- 
83 



84 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

self before his God; and hence, alongside of the field 
and the factory, in the midst of the hamlet and the 
town, beside the state-house and the market-house, 
there rises up the Church, its finger pointing to the 
sky. This is to represent to man the infinite desire, 
infinite duty, infinite right. Thereby mankind would 
avail itself of the forces of God, and be at home in 
His world. Man is so much body, that the mouth 
goes always : he never forgets to build and plant. But 
the body is so full of soul, that no generation ever 
loses sight of God. In this ship of the body, cruising 
oft in many an unholy enterprise, standing off and 
standing on, tacking and veering with the shifting 
wind of circumstance and time, there is yet a little 
needle that points up, which has its dip and variations ; 

" But, though it trembles as it lowly lies, 
Points to the light that changes not in heaven." 

Man must have his institution for the divine side of 
him, and hence comes the Church. Man has a priest 
before he has a king; and the progress in his idea 
of priest marks the continual advance of the human 
race. 

The minister is to serve the infinite duties of man, 
minister to his infinite rights ; and is to betake himself 
to the work of religion, as the farmer to agriculture, 
the housewright to building. But his function will 
depend on his idea of religion, of what religion is; 
that on his idea of God, of what God is. 

Now, in all the great historical forms of religion, 
both before and after Christ, priest and people have 
regarded God as imperfect in power, in wisdom, in 
justice, in love, or in holiness; as a finite God, and 
often with a dark background of evil to Him. There- 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 85 

fore, while they have worshiped before the Father, they 
have trembled before the devil, and deemed the 
devil mightier than God. Hence religion has been 
thought the service of an imperfect God, and of course 
a service with only a part of the faculties of man; 
those faculties not in their perfect action, but in their 
partial development and play. 

Thus the function of the minister has been a very 
different thing in different ages of mankind. Let me 
sum up all these in three great forms. 

I. First, the priest was to appease the wrath of 
God. He was to stand between offended Deity and 
offending man, to propitiate God and appease Him, 
to make Him humane. The priest was a special media- 
tor between God on the one side, and man on the 
other ; and it was taught that God would not listen to 
Silas and Daniel; He would hear the word of Abner. 
So Abner must propitiate the Deity for Silas and 
Daniel. 

The priest attempts this, first, by sacrifice, which 
the offending offers to the offended; and the sacrifice 
is an atonement, a peace-offering, a bribe to God to 
buy off His anger. Next, he attempts it by prayers, 
which, it is thought, alter the mind of God and His 
purpose; for the priest is supposed to be more hu- 
mane than the God who made humanity. But God, 
it is thought, will not hear the prayer of the profane 
people, nor accept their sacrifice ; only that of the sa- 
cred priest. 

This, then, was the function of the heathen and 
Hebrew priest for a long time. Without sacrifice by 
the priest's hand, there was no salvation. That was 
the rule. " Come not empty-handed before the Lord," 



86 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

says the priest, " else He will turn you off." Then, 
the offering of a sacrifice was thought to be rehgion, 
and the priest's function was to offer it. That is the 
rudest form. 

II. Next, the function of the priest is to reconcile 
the offended God to offending men by ritual action, 
and then to communicate salvation to men by out- 
ward means, — baptism, penitence, communion, absolu- 
tion, extreme unction, and the like. Here the priest 
is no longer merely a sacrificer; he is a communicator 
of salvation already achieved; he does not make a new 
deposit of salvation, but only draws on the established 
fund. That is the chief function of the Catholic priest 
at this day. But still, like the Hebrew and heathen 
priests, he makes " intercession with God " for the 
living and the dead. " Out of the range of the sacra- 
ments of the Church," says he, " there is no salva- 
tion ; the wrath of God will eat you up." The Catholic 
priest does not make a new and original sacrifice; 
for the one great sacrifice has been made once for all, 
and God has been appeased towards mankind in gen- 
eral. But the priest is to take that great sacrifice, 
and therewith redeem this and the other particular 
man ; communicating to individuals the general salva- 
tion which Christ has wrought. With the CathoUc, 
therefore, to take the sacraments is thought to be 
religion, and the great thing of religion. 

III. Then, as a third thing, the priest aims to 
communicate and explain a miraculous revelation of 
the will of God ; and the worshipers are to believe that 
miraculous revelation of the will of God, and have 
faith in it. That is the only means of salvation with 
them. So, in this third form, to take the Scriptures 
and believe them is thought to be religion. This is 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 87 

the chief official function of the Protestant priest, — 
to communicate and explain the Scriptures; and all 
the theological seminaries in the Protestant world for 
the education of clergymen are established chiefly for 
that function, — to teach the young man to communi- 
cate and explain the Scriptures to mankind; for be- 
lief in them is thought to be religion. Chillingworth, 
two hundred years ago, said, " The Bible is the reli- 
gion of Protestants ; " and meant, to believe the Bible 
is the religion of Protestants. And that is what is 
meant by salvation by faith. 

The line of historical continuity is never broken. 
The Catholic priest, like the Hebrew and the heathen, 
still claims to alter the mind of God by " intercession." 
The Protestant priest, like the Catholic, yet pretends 
to communicate salvation by the " sacraments," in the 
waters of baptism, or the bread and wine of com- 
munion ; and to change the purposes of God, by prayer 
for rain in time of drought, for health in time of pes- 
tilence. However, the chief function of the Protes- 
tant priest is to communicate and explain the Scrip- 
tures ; for he says, " Out of the range of belief in 
Scripture there is no salvation." 

The heathen and Hebrew priests say, " Offer the 
sacrifice, and be saved." Says the Catholic priest, 
" Accept the sacrament, and be saved." Says the Prot- 
estant priest, " Believe the Scriptures, and be saved." 
That has been, or still is, the official function of these 
three classes of ministers in sacred things. They rep- 
resent the three successive ideas of religion which have 
appeared in the heathen and Hebrew Church, in the 
Catholic Church, and lastly in the Protestant Church. 

But at this day, in all the forms of religion which 
belong to the two leading races of mankind, the Cauca- 



88 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

slan and the Mongolian, — comprising the Hebrew, 
Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Christian, and Mahometan, — 
the priest has got an exceptional function. That has 
come upon him by accident, as it were, in the progress 
of man, — a human accident, for there are no divine 
ones ; God lets nothing slip unawares from His pen ; 
there are no accidents in His world. And that func- 
tion is to promote religion ; to promote plain piety 
and plain morality — the love of God and the love 
of man. 

This, I say, is exceptional. It Is only a subsidiary 
part of the function, even of the Protestant minister. 
True, throughout all Christendom the priest demands 
righteousness. But mark this: he demands it as a 
measure convenient for present expediency, not as a 
principle necessary to eternal salvation. This excep- 
tional function is more important with the Catholic 
than it was with the heathen or Hebrew; more im- 
portant with the Protestant than it is with the Catholic. 
Still it is subsidiary ; and it is thought that the sin 
of a whole life, however wicked, may be wiped out 
all at once, if, on his death-bed, a man repeats a few 
passages of Scripture, and declares his faith in the 
redemption of Christ, and a belief in the words of 
the Bible. A man so base as Aaron Burr — the most 
dreadful specimen of human depravity that America 
has yet produced, so far as I know — might have left 
an unblemished reputation for Christianity, if, a few 
weeks before he died, he had confessed his belief in 
every word between the lids of this Bible ; had declared 
that he had no confidence in human virtue, hoped for 
salvation only through Christ ; and if he had taken the 
communion at a priest's hands. That would have 
given him a better reputation in the churches than 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 89 

the noble career of Washington, and the long, philan- 
thropic, and almost unspotted life of Franklin. 

I say this is subsidiary. The Protestant priest 
does not rely on it as his main work ; and, in proof 
of success, I have seldom known a minister point to 
the morality of his parish, — not a drunkard in it, not 
a licentious man, not a dishonest man, in it. I have 
seldom known him refer even to the comfort of his par- 
ish, — pauperism gone, all active, doing well, and well 
to do. He tells you of the number that he has admitted 
to the '' Christian communion," of those that he has 
" sprinkled " with the waters of baptism ; not the souls 
he has baptized with the Holy Ghost and its beauteous 
fire. Men wish to prove that the Americans are a 
" Christian people," a " religious people : " they tell 
the number of Bibles there are in the land; the num- 
ber of churches that point their finger with such beauty 
to the sky; they never tell of the good deeds of the 
nation; of its institutions, of its ideas, its sentiments. 
And when an outcry is made against the advance of 
" infidelity," nobody quotes the three million slaves, 
the political corruption of the rulers, the venality of 
the courts, the disposition to plunder other nations ; 
nobody speaks of intemperance and licentiousness, 
and dishonesty in trade; they only say that some man 
" denies total depravity, or the fall," or " the miracles," 
or " the existence of a devil," and thinks he is " wiser 
than the Bible." Anywhere in Christendom it would 
be deemed a heresy against all Christendom to say 
that human nature was sufficient for human history, 
and had turned out on trial just as God meant it should 
turn out on trial; and that a man's salvation was his 
character, his heart, and his life. 



90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

If we start with the idea that God is infinitely per- 
fect in power, in wisdom, in justice, and in love and 
holiness, — then the function of the minister is not to 
appease the wrath of God by sacrifice and intercession ; 
not to communicate miraculous salvation ; not even to 
communicate and explain a miraculous revelation; it 
will be to promote absolute religion amongst man- 
kind. 

He will start with three facts : first, with the infinite 
perfection of the dear God; next, with human nature, 
which God made as a perfect means to His perfect 
end, — human nature developed thus far in its history ; 
and, as a third thing, with the material universe, — 
the ground under our feet and the heavens over our 
head ; and he will take the universe, the world of matter 
and the world of man, as the revelation of the Infinite 
God. 

Then, I say, the function of the minister will be to 
teach and promote the religion of human nature in all 
its parts. He will aim to teach, first, natural piety, 
the subjective service of God, the internal worship. I 
mean the love of God with mind and conscience and 
heart and soul; in the intellectual form, the love of 
every truth and every beauty ; in the moral form, the 
love of justice; in the affectional form, the love of 
God as love; and the love of God also as holiness: to 
say it in a word, love of the God of infinite wisdom, 
justice, love, and holiness, — the perfect God, the in- 
finite object, adequate to satisfy every spiritual desire 
of man. 

Then he must aim to teach natural morality, the 
objective worship of God, which is the outward serv- 
ice. That is, the keeping of all the laws of the body 
and spirit of man ; service by every limb of the body. 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 91 

every faculty of the spirit, and every power which we 
possess over matter or over men. 

The minister is to show what this piety and morahty 
demand, — in the form, first, of individual life; then 
in the form of domestic life; then of social, politi- 
cal, ecclesiastical, and general human life. He is to 
show how this religion will look in the person of a 
man, in a family, community, church, nation, and world. 
That is his function. 

He is not to humanize God, but to humanize men; 
not to appease the wrath of God, — there is no such 
thing ; not to communicate a mysterious salvation from 
an imaginary devil in another world ; but, in this life, 
to help men get a real salvation from want, from igno- 
rance, folly, impiety, immorality, oppression, and every 
form of evil. He is to teach man to save himself by 
his character and his life ; not to lean on another arm. 
His function is not to communicate and explain a 
miraculous revelation. He knows revelation only by 
constant modes of operation ; revelation by law, not 
against law; revelation in this universe of matter and 
in this greater universe of man, not revelation by 
miracle. What is the exceptional function of the 
heathen, the Hebrew, the Catholic, and the Protestant 
priest, is the instantial and only function of the minis- 
ter of the Infinite God, who would teach the absolute 
religion. 

Well, this minister must have regard to man in his 
nature as body and as spirit. Natural religion, — why, 
it is for this life, as well as the life to come. It is 
but part of the function of religion to save me for the 
next world ; I must be saved for this. He is to teach 
men to subordinate the body to the spirit, but to give 
the body its due; to subordinate the lower desires to 



92 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

the higher; all finite desires, duties, and rights, to the 
infinite desire, duty, and right; but to do this so that 
no one faculty shall tyrannize over any other, but that 
a man shall be the harmony which God meant him to 
be. He is to see to it that every one is faithful to 
his own individual character, and takes no man for mas- 
ter; everybody for teacher who can serve and teach; 
nobody for master barely to command. And while 
he insists on individuality of life, he must also remem- 
ber that the individual is for the family, that for the 
community, the community for the nation, and the 
nation for mankind; and that all of these must be 
harmoniously developed together. Thus the partiality 
of friendship, of connubial or parental love, the nar- 
rowness of the clan, neighborhood, or country, he is to 
correct by that universal philanthropy which takes in 
neighborhood, nation, and all mankind. 

He is to remember, also, the immortal life of man, 
and to shed the light of eternity into man's conscious- 
ness, in the hour of passion, and in the more dangerous, 
long, cold, clear day of ambition. In the hour of dis- 
tress and dreadful peril, he is to help men to that faith 
in God which gives stillness in every storm. He is 
to help them overcome this puerile fear of death, and 
to translate their fear of God into love for Him, — into 
perfect, blameless, absolute trust in the Father; and 
he is to bring the light of all this beneficence upon 
men in the season of peril, and in the dreadful hour 
of mortal bereavement, when father and mother and 
child and wife gather blackness in their countenance, 
and pass away. Over the gate of death he is to arch 
the rainbow of everlasting life, and bid men walk 
through unabashed, and not ashamed. He is to pro- 
mote the sentiment of religion, as a feeling of depend- 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 93 

€nce on God, obligation to God, trust in God, and love 
for God; of ultimate dependence on His providence, 
inalienable obligation to keep His law, absolute trust 
in His protection, and a perfect and complete faith 
in His infinite perfection. 

Then he is to promote the practice of this religion, 
so that what at first is an instinctive feeling shall be 
next a conscious idea of this ultimate dependence, in- 
alienable obligation, absolute trust, and perfect and 
complete love ; he is to promote the application of this 
consciousness of religion to all the departments of 
human life, — individual, domestic, social, national, and 
universal. Of all doctrines he is to ask, Are they true? 
of all statutes, Are they just? of all conduct, Is it 
manly, loving, and kind? of all things, — institutions, 
thoughts, and persons. Are they conformable to the 
nature of mankind, and so to the -will of God? So 
his aim must be to make all men perfect men; to do 
this first to his own little congregation, and next to 
all mankind. 

Now this cannot be done abstractly. Man is a body 
as well as a spirit. In a material world, by means of 
material things, must he work out his spiritual prob- 
lems. The soul is a soul in the flesh, and the eternal 
duties of life bear hard on the transient interests of 
to-day. 

Man's character is always the result of two forces, — ' 
the immortal spirit within him, and the transient cir- 
cumstances about him. The minister is to know, that 
nine persons out of ten have their character much in- 
fluenced by the circumstances about them ; and he is to 
see to it that those circumstances are good. Thus, the 
abstract work of promoting religion, and helping to 
form the character of the people, brings the minister 
into contact with the material forces of the world. 



94 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

It is idle to say the minister must not meddle with 
practical things. If the sun is to shine in heaven, it 
must look into the street, and the shop, and the cellar ; 
it must burnish with lovely light a filing of gold in 
the jeweller's shop, and it must illuminate the strag- 
gling straw in a farmer's yard. And just so religion, 
which communes with God with one hand, must lay the 
other on every human duty. So you see the relation 
which the minister must sustain to the great works of 
man, to political and commercial activity, to literature, 
and to society in general. 

The State is a machine to work for the advantage 
of a special nation, for its material welfare alone, by 
means of certain restricted sentiments and ideas limited 
to that work, written in a Constitution, which is the 
norm of the statutes ; by means of statute laws, which 
are the norm of domestic and social conduct. So the 
Legislature makes statutes for the material welfare of 
the maj ority of that nation ; the Judiciary decides that 
the statutes conform to the Constitution ; the Executive 
enforces the statutes, and the people obey. When the 
State has done this, it has done everything which its 
idea demands of it at the present day. 

Now, the minister is to represent, not America, not 
England, not France alone, but the human nature of 
all mankind; and see that his nation harms no other 
nation; that the majority hinders no minority, how- 
ever small ; that it brings the weight of its foot upon no 
single man, never so little. He must see that the mate- 
rial comfort of to-day is not got at the cost of man's 
spiritual welfare for to-day, to-morrow, and eternity. 
So he is to try every statute of men by the law of God ; 
the Constitution of America by the Constitution of the 
Universe. National measures he must try by universal 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 95 

principles ; and if a measure does not square with the 
abstract true and the abstract right, does not conform 
to the will and the law of God, — then he must cry out, 
** Away with it ! " Statesmen look at political econ- 
omy ; and they ask of each measure, " Will it pay, here 
and now ? " The minister must look for political 
morality, and ask, " Is it right in the eyes of God? " 
So you see that at once the pulpit becomes a very near 
neighbor to the state-house ; and the minister must have 
an eye to correct and guide the politicians. He must 
warn men to keep laws that are just, warn them to 
break laws that are wicked ; and, as they reverence the 
dear God, never to bow before an idol of statesmen or 
the State. 

Then he must have an eye to the business of the 
nation ; and while the trader asks only, " What mer- 
chandise can we make? " the minister must also ask, 
** What men shall we become?" Both the politicians 
and the merchants are wont to use men as mere tools, 
for the purposes of politics and trade, heedless of what 
comes, by such conduct, to their human instruments. 
The minister is to see to it, that man is never subor- 
dinated to money, morality never put beneath expedi- 
ency, nor eternity sacrificed to to-day. The slave- 
trade was once exceedingly profitable to Newport and 
Liverpool, and was most eminently " respectable." 
But the minister is to ask for its effects on men ; the 
men that traJ0Sc, and the trafficked men. Once it was 
as disreputable in a certain church in this city to preach 
against slave-buying in Guinea and slave-selling in 
Cuba, as it is now to preach against slave-taking in 
Boston or New Orleans. The spirit of modern com- 
merce is sometimes as hostile to the higher welfare 
of the people as the spirit of ancient war; both Old 



96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

and New England have abundantly proved this in the 
present century. 

The minister is to look also at the character of 
literature; to warn men of the bad, and guide them 
to the good. At this day the power of the press is 
-exceedingly great for good or for evil. In America, 
thank God, it is a free press; and no wicked censor 
lays his hand on any writer's page. See what a great 
expansion the press has got ! What was a private 
thought one night in a senator's heart, is the next day 
a printed page, spread before the eyes of a million 
men. The press is an irresponsible power, and needs 
all the more to be looked after; and who is there to 
look after it, if not the minister who reverences the 
great God? 

Then the minister is to study nicely the general con- 
duct of society, and seek to guide men from mere desire 
to the solemn counsels of duty ; to check the redun- 
dance of appetite in the period of passion, and the 
redundance of ambition in the more dangerous period 
of calculation ; to guard men against sudden gusts of 
popular frenzy. 

The great concerns of education come also beneath 
the minister's eye ; and while the press, business, and 
politics keep the lower understanding intensely active 
and excessively developed, he is to guide men to the 
culture of reason, imagination, conscience, the affec- 
tions, and the soul; is to show them a truth far above 
the forum and the market's din ; is to lead them to 
justice and to love, and to enchant their eyes with the 
beauty of the Infinite God. The minister of absolute 
religion must be the schoolmaster of the loftier in- 
*tellect and the conscience; the teacher of a philan- 
thropy that knows no distinction of color or of race; 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 97 

the teacher of a faith in God which never shrinks from 
obedience to His law. 

In society, as yet, there is still a large mass of 
** heathenism," — I mean of scorn for that which is 
spiritual in the body, and immortal in the soul ; a con- 
tempt for the feeble, hatred against the unpopular 
transgressor, a contempt for justice, a truckling to ex- 
pediency, and a cringing to men of large understand- 
ing and colossal wickedness. Hence, in the nation 
there is a perishing class three and thirty hundred 
thousand strong, held as slaves. In all our great cities 
there is another perishing class, goaded by poverty, 
oppressed by crime. The minister is to be an especial 
guardian and benefactor of the neglected, the op- 
pressed, the poor ; eyes to the ignorant, and conscience 
and self-respect to the criminal. He is not to repre- 
sent merely the gallows and the jail ; he is to represent 
the spirit of the man who " came to save that which 
was lost," and the infinite goodness of God, who sends 
this sunlight on you and me, as well as on better 
men. 

Then, in all our great cities, there is one deep, and 
dark, and ghastly pit of corruption, whereinto, from 
all New England's hills, there flows down what was 
once as fair and as pure and as virgin-fresh as the 
breath of maiden morn. It is the standing monument 
which shows the actual position of woman in modern 
society ; that men regard her as the vehicle of their 
comfort and the instrument of their lust, — not a per- 
son, only a thing. The minister, remembering who It 
was that drew Moses out of the river Nile, and who 
washed the feet of one greater than Moses with her 
own tears, and wiped them with her hair, must not 
forget this crime, its consequences, which contaminate 
XII— 7 



98 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

society, and its cause afar off, — contempt and scorn 
for woman ; that is its cause. 

In all this you see how different is the position and 
function of the minister of absolute religion from that 
of the mere priest. In Russia the few hold down the 
many, and the priest says nothing against it. He is 
there only to appease God, to administer salvation, to 
communicate Scripture; not to teach morality and 
piety. In America the many hold down the few, — 
the twenty millions chain the three; and the priest 
says nothing against it. What does he care? He 
goes on appeasing the wrath of God, administering 
salvation, explaining and communicating Scripture, 
and turns round and says: "This is all just as it 
should be, a part of the revelation, salvation, and sac- 
raments too; come unto me, and believe, and be bap- 
tized with water." But the minister of absolute re- 
ligion is to hold a different speech. He is to say: 
" My brethren, hold there ! Stop your appeasing of 
God ! — wait till God is angry. Stop your imputing 
of righteousness ! There is no salvation in that. 
Stop your outcry of ' believe, believe, believe ! ' Turn 
round and put an end to this hateful oppression, and 
tread it under your feet; and then come before your 
God with clean hands, and offer your gift. That is 
your sacrifice." 

Warlike David plunders Uriah of the one lamb that 
lay all night in his bosom; then slays the injured man 
with the sword of the children of Ammon. The priest 
knows it all, and says against it not a single word; 
but he slays his bullocks, and offers his goats and his 
turtle-doves, and makes his sacrifices, and spreads out 
his hands and says, " Save us, good Lord I David is 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 99 

a man after the Lord's own heart." No word touches 
the conscience of the king under his royal robe. But 
there comes forth a plain man, not a priest, nay, a 
prophet ; he points the finger, with his " Thou art the 
man ! " and the penitent king lies prostrate and weep- 
ing in the dust. 

A man of great intellect leads off the people; city 
by city they go over. All the priests of commerce cry 
out, " Let us do as we list." " There is no higher 
law ! " "I will send back my own brother." Then 
it is for the minister to speak, — words tender if he 
can, but at all events, words that are true, words that 
are just. 

Just now the American Esau is hungry again. The 
Cuban pottage is savory. " Feed me," cries he, " for 
I am faint." " Eat, O Esau ! " says the tempter, 
*' rough and hairy, and tired with hunting gold in 
California, and negroes in New England. Eat of 
this, O American Esau! and be glad. There is no 
God ! " But the minister is to say : " American Esau, 
wilt thou sell thy birthright of inalienable justice? 
Thou sell that! Dost not thou remember the Eye 
which never slumbers nor sleeps?" 

This, my friends, is the function of the minister. 
Well, has he means adequate to his work? They are 
only his gifts by nature, and his subsequent attain- 
ments; his power of wisdom and justice, his power of 
love, and his power of religion; that is all; nothing 
more than that, with his power of speech to bring it to 
the heart of men. But he has for ally the human na- 
ture which is in all men, which loves the true and the 
just, loves man and loves God. He has all the forces 
of the universe to help him just so far as he is on the 



100 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

side of truth and right ; for all history is only a large 
showing, that " the way of the transgressor is hard ; " 
and " the path of the righteous shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day." There are the august faces 
of noble men, who made the world loftier by their holi- 
ness, their philanthropy, and their faith in God. 
There are the prophets and apostles, — that Moses 
whom a woman drew out from the waters ; this greater 
than Moses, whose feet a penitent sinner washed with 
her tears. There are the blessed words in this book, 
fragrant all over with beauty and with trust in God. 
There are the words in every wise book. And, if the 
minister is strong enough, the ground under his feet 
is his ally ; and the heavens over his head, — they also 
are his help ; they both shall mingle in his sermon as 
these various flowers at my side mingle their beauty in 
this cup. 

There are living men and women about him all read}- 
to help. Some of them will teach him new piety and 
new morality. There are great teachers thereof 
abroad in the world at this day ; there are others equally 
far-sighted in the stillness of many a home. Helpers 
for a religious work — they are everywhere. Soon as 
the trumpet gives a not uncertain sound, they set them- 
selves in order, and are ready for the battle. The 
noblest men of the times come round to the side of 
truth and right; and, when the hands of Moses hang 
heavy, men and women hold them up, till the sun goes 
down, and the sky flames with victory. 

The minister has a most excellent position. It is 
so partly by old custom. Rest on Sunday, and the 
institution of preaching, are two habits exceedingly 
needful at this day, and of great advantage, if wisely 
used. But his position is great also by its nature ; for 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 101 

the minister is to preach on themes most concerning' 
to all, — on the conduct of life, its final destination ; is 
to appeal to what is deepest, dearest, truest, and what 
is divinest too, in mortal or immortal man. 

The most cultivated class care little for piety; but, 
with the mass of men, religion has always been a mat- 
ter the most concerning of all their concerns. So no* 
earnest man ever spoke in vain. John the Baptist, 
Jesus of Nazareth, peasant Luther, hardy Latimer, 
courtly Fenelon, and accomplished Bossuet, when they, 
speak, draw crowds from earth, and the humblest sin- 
ner looks up and aspires towards God. Men in oup 
day forget the power of the pulpit, they see so few ex- 
amples thereof. They know that bodily force is power ; 
that money, office, a place in the senate, is power; 
they forget that the pulpit is power; that truth, jus- 
tice, and love are power; that knowledge of God and 
faith in Him are the most powerful of all powers. 

The churches decline. All over New England they 
decline. They cannot draw the rich, nor drive the 
poor, as once they did of old. Why is it so? They 
have an idea which is behind the age ; a theology that 
did very well for the seventeenth century, but is feeble 
in the nineteenth. Their science is not good science; 
you must take it on faith, not knowledge; it does not 
represent a fact. Their history is not good history; 
it does not represent man, but old dreams of miracles. 
They have an idea of God which is not adequate to 
the purposes of science or philanthropy, and yet more 
valueless for the purposes of piety. Hence men of 
science turn off with contempt from the God of the 
popular theology ; the philanthropists can only loathe 
a Deity who dooms mankind to torture. And will you 
ask deeply pious men to love the popular idea of God?, 



102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Here are in Boston a hundred ministers; you would 
hardly know it except by the calendar. Many of them 
are good, kind, well-conducted, well-mannered men, 
with rather less than the average of selfishness, and 
rather more than the average of charity. But how 
little do they bring to pass ! Drunkenness reels 
through all the streets, and shakes their pulpit; the 
Bible rocks; but they have nothing to say, though it 
rock over. The kidnapper seizes his prey, and they 
have excuses for the stealer of men, but cannot put 
up a prayer for his victim ; nay, would drive the fugi- 
tive from their own door. What is the reason ? Blame 
them not. They are " ordained to appease the wrath 
of God," to " administer salvation " in wine or water, 
to " communicate and explain a miraculous revela- 
tion." They do not think that religion is piety and 
morality; it is belief in the Scriptures; compliance 
with the ritual. This is the cause which paralyzes 
^e churches of New England and all the North. The 
clergy are better than their creed. But who can work 
well with a poor tool? 

Well, my friends, it is to this pulpit that I have 
come. This is my function, such are my means. 
There was never such a time for preaching as this 
nineteenth century, — so full of vigor, enterprise, ac- 
tivity ; so full of hardy-headed men. There was never 
such a time to speak in, such a people to speak to. 
In no country could I have so fair " a chance to be 
heard " as you have given me. 

There is nothing between me and my God; only 
my folly, my prejudice, my pride, my passion, and 
my sin. I may get all of truth, of justice, of love, 
of faith in God, which the dear Father has treasured 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 103 

up for eternity, age after age. " Fear not, my son," 
says the Father : " thou shalt have whatsoever thou 
canst take." And there is nothing betwixt me and 
the 23,000,000 of America, or the 260,000,000 of 
Christendom; nothing but my cowardice, my folly, 
my selfishness, and my sin; my poverty of spirit, and 
my poverty of speech. I am free to speak, you are 
free to hear ; to gather the good into vessels, and cast 
the bad away. If old churches do not suit us, there is 
all the continent to build new ones on, all the firma- 
ment to build into. A good word flies swift and far. 
There is attraction for it in human hearts. Truth, 
justice, religion, and humanity, — how we all love 
them! Every day gives witness how dear they are 
to the hungry heart of man. Able men make a wicked 
statute, wicked judges violate the Constitution, and 
defile the great charter of human liberty with ungodly 
hoofs; but very seldom can they get the statute exe- 
cuted. " Keep it," says the priest ; " there is no higher 
law ! " The preaching comes to nothing ; but a mod- 
est woman writes a little book — a great book ; pardon 
me for calling it a little book — showing the wicked- 
ness of the law which men aim to enforce, and in thrice 
three months there are 400,000 copies of it in the 
bosom of the American and the British England; and 
it has become a flame in the heart of Christendom, 
which will not pass away. 

Tell me of the " foolishness of preaching ! " I have 
no confidence in " foolish preaching ; " but I have an 
unbounded confidence in wise preaching, — in preach- 
ing truth, justice, holiness, and love; in preaching 
natural piety and natural morality. Only let the min- 
ister have a true idea of God such as men need, and 
of religion such as we want, and there was never such 



104 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

a time for preaching, for religious power. Let me 
pray the people's prayer of righteousness, of faith in 
man, in God; and I have no fear that the devil shall 
execute his " lower law." 

There was never such a nation to preach to. Look 
at the vigor of America ; only in the third century yet, 
and there are three and twenty millions of us in the 
family, and such a homestead as never lay out of doors 
before. Look at her riches, — her corn, cattle, houses, 
shops, factories, ships, towns ; her freedom here at 
the North, — at the South it is not America ; it is Tur- 
key in Asia moved over. Look at the schools, colleges, 
libraries, lyceums. The world never saw such a pop- 
ulation; so rich, vigorous, well-educated, so fearless, 
so free, and yet so young. I know America very 
well. I know her faults ; I have never spared them, 
nor never will. I have great faith in America ; in the 
American idea ; in the ideal of our government, — a 
government of all the people, by all the people, for 
all the people; a government to serve the inalienable 
rights of man; government according to the law of 
God, and His constitution of the universe. To the 
power of numbers, of money, of industry, and inven- 
tion, I will ask the nation to add the power of justice, 
of love, of faith in God and in the natural law of God. 
Then we might surpass the other nations, not only in 
vulgar numbers and vulgar gold, but in righteousness, 
which the good God asks of us. 

I have confidence in America. I do not believe that 
American democracy is always to be satanic, and 
never celestial. I do not believe in the democracy 
that swears and swaggers, that invades Mexico and 
Cuba, and mocks at every " higher law " which is above 
the passions of the mob. I know America better. 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 105 

The democracy of the New Testament, of the Lord's 
Prayer, " Forgive as we forgive ; " the democracy of 
the Beatitudes, — that shall one day be a " kingdom 
come." I have confidence in America, because I have 
confidence in man and confidence in God ; for He knew 
what He did when He made the world, and made hu- 
man nature sufficient for human history and its own 
salvation. 

I say I have great faith in preaching; faith 
that a religious sentiment, a religious idea will revo- 
lutionize the world to beauty, holiness, peace, and love. 
Pardon me, my friends, if I say I have faith in my 
own preaching; faith that even I shall not speak in 
vain. You have taught me that. You have taught 
me to have a good deal of faith in my own preaching ; 
for it is your love of the idea which I have set before 
you, that has brought you together week after week, 
and now it has come to be year after year, in the midst 
of evil report — it was never good report. It was 
not your love for me; I am glad it was not. It was 
your love for my idea of man, of God, and of religion. 
I have faith in preaching, and you have given me rea- 
son to have that faith. 

I well know the difficulty in the way of the religious 
development of America, of New England, of Bos- 
ton. Look round, and see what blocks the wheels for- 
ward ; how strong unrighteousness appears ; how old 
it is, how ancient and honorable. But I am too old 
to be scared. I have seen too much ever to despair. 
The history of the world, — why, it is the story of the 
perpetual triumph of truth over error, of justice over 
wrong, of love against hate, of faith in God victorious 
over everything which resists His law. Is there no 
lesson in the life of that dear and crucified one? 



106 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

Eighteen hundred years ago his voice began to cry 
to us ; and now it has got the ear of the world. Each 
Christian sect has some truth the others have not; all 
have earnest and holy-hearted men, sectarian in their 
creed, but catholic in character, waiting for the con- 
solation, and seeking to be men. 

I may have an easy life, — I should like it very well ; 
a good reputation, — it would be quite delightful ; I 
love the praise of men, — perhaps no man better. But 
I may have a hard life, a bad name in society, in the 
State, and a hateful name in all the churches of Chris- 
tendom. My brothers and sisters, that is a very small 
thing to me, compared with the glorious gladness of 
telling men the whole truth, and the whole justice, and 
the whole love of religion. Before me pass the whirl- 
wind of society, the earthquake of the State, and the 
fire of the Church; but through the storm, and the 
earthquake's crash, and the hiss of the fire, there comes 
the still small voice of reason, of conscience, of love, 
and of piety; and that is the voice of God. Those 
things shall perish, but this shall endure when the 
heavens have faded, as these poor flowers shall vanish 
away. 

I am astonished, my friends, that men come to hear 
me speak ; not at all amazed at the evil name which 
attends me everywhere. I am much more astonished 
that you came, and still come, and will not believe such 
evil things. In the dark hall we left but a week ago, 
which has now become a brilliant spot in my memory, 
all the elements were against us ; here they are in our 
favor. Here is clear air in our mouths ; here is beauty 
about us on every side. The sacrament is adminis- 
tered to our eyes ; O God, that I could administer such 



POSITION OF A MINISTER 107 

a sacrament of beauty also to your ear, and through it 
to your heart ! 

Bear with me and pardon me when I say that I fear 
that, of the many persons whom curiosity has brought 
hither to-day to behold the beauty of these walls, I 
cannot expect to gather more than a handful in my 
arms. Standing in this large expanse, with this crowd 
on every side, around and above me, and behind, I feel 
my weakness more than I have felt it ever before. 
If my word can reach a few earnest and holy hearts, 
and appear in their lives, then I thank my God that 
the word has come to me, and will try not to be faith- 
less, but true. 

I know my imperfections, my follies, my faults, my 
sins; how slenderly I am furnished for the functions 
I assume. You do not ask that I should preach to you 
of that; rather that I should preach thereof to my- 
self, when there is no presence but the unslumbering 
Eye, which searches the heart of man. 

If you lend me your ears, I shall doubtless take your 
hearts too. That I may not lead you into any wrong, 
let me warn you of this. Never violate the sacred- 
ness of your individual self-respect. Be true to your 
own mind and conscience, your heart and your soul. 
So only can you be true to God. 

You and I may perish. Temptation, which has 
been too strong for thousands of stronger men, may 
be too great for me ; I may prove false to my own idea 
of religion and of duty ; the gold of commerce may 
buy me, as it has bought richer men ; the love of the 
praise of men may seduce me ; or the fear of men may 
deter my coward voice, and I may be swept off in the 
earthquake, in the storm, or in the fire, and prove 



108 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

false to that still small voice. If it shall ever be so, 
still the great ideas which I have set forth, of man, 
of God, of religion, — they will endure, and one day 
will be " a flame in the heart of all mankind." To- 
day! why, my friends, eternity is all around to-day, 
and we can step but towards that. A truth of the 
mind, of the conscience, of the heart, or the soul, — 
it is the will of God; and the omnipotence of God is 
pledged for the achievement of that will. Eternity is 
the lifetime of truth. As the forces of matter, from 
necessity, obey the laws of gravitation ; so the forces 
of man must, consciously and by our volition, obey 
the infinite will of God. Out of this absolute religion, 
which I so dimly see, — and it is only the dimness of 
the beginning of twilight which I behold, and whence 
I dimly preach, — there shall rise up one day men with 
the intellect of an Aristotle and the heart of a Jesus, 
and with the beauty of life which belongs to human 
nature; there shall rise up full-grown and manly men, 
womanly women, attaining the loveliness of their es- 
tate ; there shall be families, communities, and nations ; 
ay, and a great world also, wherein the will of God is 
the law, and the children of God have come of age and 
taken possession. God's thought must be a human 
thing, and the religion of human nature get incar- 
nated in men, families, communities, nations, and the 
world. 

Can you and I do anything for that? Each of 
us can take this great idea, and change it into daily 
life. That is the religion which God asks, the sacra- 
ment in which He communes, the sacrifice which He 
accepts. 



PRAYERS 



PRAYERS 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who needest no words for 
man to hold his converse with thee, we would enter into 
thy presence, we would reverence thy power, we would 
worship thy wisdom, we would adore thy justice, we 
would be gladdened by thy love, and blessed by our 
communion with thee. We know that thou needest 
no sacrifice at our hands, nor any off^ering at our lips ; 
yet we live in thy world, we taste thy bounty, we 
breathe thine air, and thy power sustains us, thy justice 
guides, thy goodness preserves, and thy love blesses us 
for ever and ever. O Lord, we cannot fail to praise 
thee, though we cannot praise thee as we would. We 
bow our faces down before thee with humble hearts, 
and in thy presence would warm our spirits for a 
while, that the better we may be prepared for the duties 
of life, to endure its trials, to bear its crosses, and to 
triumph in its lasting joys. 

We thank thee for the world that is about us, now 
serene, enlightened by the radiance of day, now cov- 
ered over with clouds and visited by storms, and in 
serenity and in storm still guarded and watched and 
blessed by thee. We adore thee who givest us all these 
things that we are, and promisest the glories that we 
are to become. For our daily life we thank thee, for 
its duties to exercise our hands, for its trials and 
temptations to make strong our hearts, for the friends 
that are dear to us, — a joy to us in our waking hours, 
and in the visions of the night still present, and a bless- 
ing still. 

Ill 



112 PRAYERS 

We thank thee, O Lord, for thy tender providence 
■which is over us all, for thy loving-kindness which 
blesses the child and the old man, which regards the 
sinner with affection, and lovest still thine holy child. 
Father, we know that we are wanderers from thy way, 
that we forget thy laws, that ofttimes the world has 
dominion over us, that we are slaves to passion and to 
every sense. And yet we rejoice to remember that 
thy kindness is not as our kindness, and thy love is 
infinite, that thou tenderly carest for thy children, 
that thou art the Shepherd of the sheep, and in thy 
bosom bearest the feeble lambs, and gently leadest at 
last each wanderer back to its home. 

We pray thee that we may forgive ourselves for 
every sin we commit, that with penitence we may wash 
out the remembrance of wrong, and with wings of new 
resolution j0[y out of darkness in the midst of trans- 
gression, into the higher, brighter heaven of human 
duty, of human joy, and of the Christian's peace. 

Teach us, O Lord, to use this world wisely and faith- 
fully and well. In its daily duties and trials may we 
find the school for wisdom, for goodness, and for piety. 
May we learn by every trial that thou sendest, be 
strengthened by every cross, and when we stoop in 
sadness to drink bitter waters, may we rise refreshed 
and invigorated. Help us to live at peace with our 
souls, disturbing no string on this harp of a thousand 
chords, but attuning all to harmony, and in our life 
living one great triumphant hymn to thee. Withhold 
from us what is evil, though we beg mightily for it, 
and with tears and prayers. Help us to live in unity 
with our brother men, reconciling our interest to their 
interests, by faithfully discharging every duty, by 
patiently bearing with the weakness or the strength of 



PRAYERS 113 

our brothers, and loving them as we love ourselves. 
Teach us, Father, to love the unlovely, to love those 
who evil entreat us, to toil for those who are burdens 
in the world, and to seek to save them from ignorance, 
to reform them of their wickedness, and to hasten that 
time when all men shall recognize that thou art their 
Father, and their brothers are indeed their brothers, 
and that all owe fidelity to thee and loving-kindness to 
their fellow-men. Help us to live in unity with thee, 
no sloth hiding us from thy presence, no passion turn- 
ing us aside from thy counsel, but, with mind and con- 
science, with heart and soul, assimilating ourselves to 
thee, till thy truth dwells in our understanding, and 
thy justice enlightens our conscience, and thy love 
shines a beatitude and a blessed light in our heart and 
soul for ever and ever. 

In times of darkness, when men fail before thee, in 
days when men of high degree are a lie, and those of 
low degree are a vanity, teach us, O Lord, to be true 
before thee, not a vanity, but soberness and manliness ; 
and may we keep still our faith shining in the midst 
of darkness, the beacon-light to guide us over stormy 
seas to a home and haven at last. Father, give us 
strength for our daily duty, patience for our constant 
or unaccustomed cross, and in every time of trial give 
us the hope that sustains, the faith that wins the vic- 
tory and obtains satisfaction and fulness of joy. 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. 
May thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth 
as it is done in heaven. Give us each day our daily 
bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those 
who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from its evil. For thine is the kingdom, 
and the power, and the glory for ever. Amen. 
XII— 8 



114. PRAYERS 



II 



O thou Eternal One, whose presence fills all space 
and occupies all time, who hast thy dwelling-place in 
every humble heart that trustfully looks up to thee, 
we flee to thee again to offer thee our morning psalm 
of thanksgiving and of praise, and to ask new inspira- 
tion from thee for days to come, while we stain our 
sacrifice with penitence for evils that our hands have 
wrought. Father, may thy spirit pray with us in our 
prayer, teaching us the things that we ought to ask 
of thee; may we serve thee faithfully and worship 
thee aright. O Lord, we bow down our spirits before 
thee, we reverence thine Infinite power, we adore thine 
unbounded wisdom, which understands things past, 
things present, and to come ; we confide In thy perfect 
justice, knowing that we are safe; but, O Lord, we 
rejoice in thy love. We bless thee for thy tender 
mercies, our hearts thank thee for thy loving-kindness, 
and we reach out the arms of our soul towards thee, 
knowing that thou art our Father, who lovest us bet- 
ter even than the mothers that have borne us, O Lord, 
we do not know how to praise thee as we ought, for 
we do not understand all of thy goodness, we cannot 
measure all of thy loving-kindness towards us, for it is 
infinite. 

We thank thee for the signs and tokens of thyself 
which thou hast placed around us everywhere. We 
thank thee for this lovely day which thou lendest us. 
We bless thee for the broad green world beneath our 
feet, for these wondrous heavens above our heads, 
which nightly thou sowest with starry seed, and every 
morning limnest with orient light. We thank thee 
that all these things are a revelation of thee, for day 



PRAYERS 115 

giveth voice unto day, and night speaketh unto night, 
and the rivers as they roll, and the ocean as it ebbs and 
floods, and this all-embracing sky, — O Lord, they tell 
of thy magnitude, they speak of thy power, they talk 
of thy wisdom, and they charm us with tidings of thy 
love. 

But a greater revelation than this of thyself hast 
thou made in thy still small voice, which whispers in 
our soul that all this magnificence is but a drop of 
thee, yea, a little sparklet that has fallen from thy 
presence, thou Central Fire, and Radiant Light of all. 
We know that these outward things are but a sparkle 
of thy power, a whisper of thy wisdom, a faint breath 
of thy loving-kindness. O Lord, we thank thee that 
on our soul thou hast writ that thou art our Father, 
that thy name is love, that we should not tremble nor 
fear before thee, but as a child to its mother, so may 
we turn longingly and lovingly and with unfailing 
trust to thee. Pardon us that we have known thee no 
better, that we have trembled when we should have 
rejoiced, and have been afraid when there was none 
to molest us nor to make us afraid. O Lord, open our 
inner eye that we may see thee as thou art, touch thou 
our soul with thine own inspiration that we may know 
thee, that we may love thee, that we may serve thee 
with our daily life. 

We remember in our prayer the temptations which 
every day brings with it, our sorrows, and our trials, 
and our cares. Arm us for the duty which thou giv- 
est us to do, make us strong to bear every cross, pa- 
tient and earnest to do every day's work in its own day, 
and to bear ourselves so bravely that we shall always 
acquit us as men, and so be strong. In our day of 
passion, we pray thee to deliver us out of its flame and 



116 PRAYERS 

heat, that we come as thj children of old out of the 
furnace, with no smell of its pollution on our gar- 
ment's hem. And in the more dangerous period of 
interest and ambition, we pray thee to save us from its 
chilling cold and its wintry frost, that we come out not 
benumbed by its palsy, nor frozen by its snow. Give 
us wisdom to disperse our darkness, let justice triumph 
over selfishness in our soul, let duty be supreme over 
desire, till every desire becomes dutiful and our daily 
life is one continual sacrament to thee. Father, let a 
hving love of thee dwell in our hearts, let it become 
strong within us, and lead to a faith that fails not and 
needs not to be ashamed. May our earthly life be 
beautiful and acceptable in thy sight, and may our 
souls be filled with every spiritual gift from thee ; and 
receiving much, may we give the more, making our 
lives still more acceptable to thee. Lead us through 
evil and through good report, bearing the cross which 
thou layest upon us ; and by our prayers, our toil and 
our tears, change thou us into the glorious image of 
thyself, that we may be wholly thine, transformed to 
thee, and thy truth dwell with us, thy justice pitch her 
tent with us, and thine own loving-kindness charm and 
enchant our very souls. So may thy kingdom come, 
and so thy will be done on earth as it is done in 
heaven. 

Ill 

Our Father who art in heaven, thou soul of our 
souls, and safeguard of the world, we flee to thee to 
sing our morning psalm, to pray our morning prayer, 
bringing the offering of gratitude from our hearts, 
and asking of thee the gift of thy holy spirit. Thou 
sendest down thy sunlight on the world, thou rainest 



PRAYERS 117 

thy rain to still the dust and pacify the stones of the 
street crying for moisture from the skies, and we know 
that thou wilt feed our spirits with thine inspiration, 
ministering truth to the hungry mind, justice to the 
conscience that asketh right of thee, and wilt pour 
thy holy love on every earnest, seeking, asking soul. 

We thank thee for thy broad providence which cares 
for the grass in the fields, and adorns every little flower 
that fringes the hedgerows of life, and carest also for 
the mighty orbs above our heads and the solid ground 
beneath our feet ; and thyself art not hard to find, nor 
far to seek, but art with every living soul of man. 
Father, we thank thee for thy justice which presides 
over this world, and out of evil bringeth forth good 
continually, disappointing the wickedness of men, and 
doing all things for our good. We thank thee for 
thine unbounded love which caused us to be, which 
made this fair world, which waiteth for us in our trans- 
gressions, and goes out to meet us, prodigals or peni- 
tent, a great way off, and blesses still thy wandering, 
even unrepentant child. We thank thee for thy voice 
in our hearts, for the inspiration which thou givest 
to the sons of men, to show us the way in which we 
should go, to rebuke us for every folly, to chastise 
us for every sin, but to encourage everything that is- 
holy and noble and true in our hearts. 

We thank thee for the noble examples of human 
excellence which thou raisest up from time to time, 
the landmarks of human life, and our guiding lights 
to lead us safely home to port and peace, to heaven 
here and heaven at last with thee. 

We pray thee that we may be faithful and true to 
every gift which thou hast given us. In a time of 
darkness, when great men are a deceit and little men 



118 PRAYERS 

are a lie, may our heart never fail us, nor we hesitate 
nor despair for a moment of thy goodness and thy 
truth. Though hand join in hand, teach us that 
wickedness cannot prosper, nor iniquity endure. Fix 
our eyes on the true, the right, the holy, the beautiful, 
and the good, till we love them, and therein love thee 
with an affection that cannot be ashamed and will not 
be defeated. Teach us to be blameless in our daily 
life, to be heroic in our conduct, distinguishing be- 
tween the doctrines of men and thine everlasting com- 
mandments. Help us to love thee, the Creator, more 
than the creature before our eyes ; to imitate thy 
justice, to share thy truth, and to spread abroad thy 
living love to all mankind. Are we weak, — and we 
know we are, — give us strength ; sinners, — and our 
heart cries out against us, — chastise and rebuke us 
till we repent of our sin, and come back with humble 
hearts to worship thee in holiness, in nobleness, and 
in truth. Give us the love of thyself which shall tread 
down every passion under its feet that wars against 
the soul, that shall make our daily lives beneficent, 
and so cast out every fear, the fear of man, and the 
fear, O Lord, of thee. Help us to know thee in thine 
immensity, to feel thee and to love thee in thine infinite 
love, till every weight is cast off from us, and with 
thy sunshine on our wings we mount up as eagles and 
fly towards thee. We pray that we may be armed 
against temptation, and fortified inly for every duty, 
prepared for every emergency, and ready to serve thee 
with our limbs and our lives. 

We ask thy blessing on all sorts and conditions of 
men in the various departments of our mortal lives. 
May the young be trained up in innocence, and taught, 
not to fear men, but to love their brothers and to 



PRAYERS 119 

love thee. When sundered but joyful souls are bj 
their affection wedded and made one, may a higher 
life spring up in their united hearts, and may they 
serve thee with blameless beauty and celestial piety 
set in a mortal life. In the various trials of our daily 
business teach us to be honest, and to love men, to 
respect the integrity of our own souls, and never 
waver, turned this side by fear of men, and that side 
by the lust for their praise and their admiration. 

We remember the poor and the needy in our pray- 
ers; yea. Lord, the poorest and the neediest of all, 
who own not by human laws their bodies, nor their 
limbs, nor lives, who flee from the iron house of bond- 
age and ask shelter here with us. Yea, Lord, their 
prayer from our lips goes up before thee, asking the 
rights of man which thou didst give them at their 
birth, but the oppressor so fraudfully and forcibly 
rent away. O Lord, we are all sinners before thee, 
but we remember those who with unashamed coun- 
tenance tread down thy law, who even here seek for 
the life and freedom of men, and defile the fair heritage 
which our fathers asked of thee in their prayer and 
purchased with their sacred blood. Father, we pray 
thee that thou wilt pity those who have shown no pity, 
and wilt love those who to their brothers show only 
hate, treading them with bloody hoofs into the ground, 
and who with the brow of brass affront thy thunders 
and blaspheme thy love. Teach us, O Lord, our hard- 
est task, to love also these. And our poor brothers, 
who with chained hands lift up an unchained soul to 
thee, who flee from city to city, while their persecutors 
desecrate thy name, who wander from one nation to 
another kingdom, seeking for the rights of man, — 
we pray thee that thou wilt guide them in their flight 



120 PRAYERS 

by night, and still by day, and raise up defenders for 
them here and everywhere. Stir up the souls of noble 
men that they bewray not him that wandereth, that 
they hide and shelter the outcast, and are a wall of 
fire about those who have taken their life in their hands 
and fled to us for succor, till a band of brothers fold 
their arms about the needy, and uplift those that are 
faint and ready to perish in their fall.^ 

O Lord, thy charity never faileth. Touch the 
hearts of men with humanity, that they may learn 
justice and to love their brothers. Make us nobler, 
and braver, and holier. Teach us to love all men. 
So let us be thy children, loving those that hate us, 
and praying for such as despitefully use us. So may 
thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as 
it is in heaven. 

IV 

Our Father who art in heaven, who also art not less 
on earth, peopling every point of space with thy 
presence, and filling every point of spirit with thy 
power, thy wisdom, and thy love, we would lift up 
our souls unto thee, and gather together our scattered 
and estrayed spirits, that we may hold communion 
with thee for a moment In our prayer, and be strength- 
ened for daily duty, and made newly grateful for joys 
which thou givest us, more faithful to ourselves and 
more reliant upon thee. 

We know that thou wilt remember us, nor needest 
thou to be entreated in our morning psalm or morning 
prayer, for before our heart knows our need of thee, 
thou art with our heart, and sustalneth and givest us 
life. Father, we know that though earthly friends 
may prove faithless, though distance of space and 



PRAYERS 121 

length of time may hide the child from the mother 
that bore him, yet thine eye never slumbers nor sleeps, 
and thou rememberest us when mortal friends forsake 
us, or when time and distance shut out the affections 
of the mortal heart. Yea, Lord, the distance is no 
distance with thee, for thy presence shineth every- 
where as the day, and thy loving-kindness waits on' 
the footsteps of morning, and thou fillest up the shades 
of evening, and givest to thy beloved, even in their 
sleep. 

Father in heaven, we thank thee for all this world 
of thy providence, so fertile in wonders, so rich in 
beauty to every hungering sense of man. We thank 
thee that thou carest for the ground, that nightly 
thou waterest it with dews from heaven, and in thine 
own season sendest the river of waters in plenteous 
showers to moisten field, and garden, and hill, and 
town. Father, we thank thee for thy loving-kindness 
and thy tender mercy, that thou watchest over every 
little fly spreading his thin wings in this morning's 
sun, and boldest this system of universes in thine own 
arms of infinite and never-ending love. 

We thank thee for the beauty which thou bringest 
forth in every stream of water, on every hillside, and 
that wherewith thou fringest the paths of men as they 
pass to their daily work. We bless thee for the beauty 
which thou gatherest in the lily's fragrant cup, cloth- 
ing it with a kinglier loveliness than Solomon in all 
his glory could ever put on; and in these flowers of 
earth, and in those imperishable flowers of beauty over 
our heads, we read, O Lord, the alphabet of thy loving- 
kindness and thy tender mercy. But we thank thee 
still more that in a tenderer and lovelier and holier 
way thou revealest thy loving-kindness and thy tender- 
ness and thy holiness of heart to thy children. 



122 PRAYERS 

We thank thee for the large faculties with which 
thou hast gifted the children of men. We thank thee 
for the senses that take hold of the world of sight 
and touch and sound, and are fed and beautified 
thereon. We thank thee for these spiritual powers 
which lay hold of justice and truth, and love and faith 
in thee, these flowers of the soul, these imperishable 
stars of the human spirit; and we bless thee for thy 
yet greater loving-kindness and tender mercy which 
thou speakest to our souls. We thank thee that, as 
thou feedest the little grass by the road-side and every 
flower of the field with dew by night and rain by day, 
and warmest and waterest their roots, so thine inspira- 
tion falls down upon the souls of thy children, and 
thou feedest this strong and flamelike flower with thine 
own wisdom, thine own justice, thy holiness, and thy 
love. 

Lord, what shall we render to thee for the least 
of the mercies which thou hast given us? We pray 
thee that we may live as blameless as the flowers of 
the field ; that our lives within may be as fragrant, and 
without as fair, and that what is promise in our spring, 
what is blossom in our summer, may in the harvest 
of heaven bear fruit of everlasting life. 

We look unto thee, and we will not pray thee that 
thou wilt remember us. We know that though a 
mother may forget the babe that she has borne, thou 
never forsakest a single child of thine. In sorrow 
we turn our eyes to thee, and thou wipest the tears 
from our eyelids ; in darkness we look up to thee, and 
it is all light within our soul. When those that are 
nearest and dearest to our heart have gone down to 
the sides of the pit, O Lord, we know that the mortal 
is rendered up that the soul may be clothed with im- 



PRAYERS 123 

mortality, and inherit everlasting joys with thee. 
When our own heart cries out against us, we know 
that thou art greater than our heart, and no folly, 
no wandering, and no sin can ever hide us from thine 
infinite motherliness. We bless thee that all thine 
ordinances are designed for our good, that the rod of 
thine affliction and the stafp of our support, they both 
comfort us, for thou still art our Shepherd, and lead- 
est us beside the still waters, and wilt feed us in the 
full pastures and give peace to our soul. 

O thou our God, we pray thee that we may be 
strengthened for every day's duty, have patience to 
bear any cross that is laid upon us, wisdom to order 
our pathway aright, the heart of holiness to trust thee 
with an absolute faith, and the soul that is full of 
loving-kindness to do good to our brothers here on 
the earth. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

V 

O thou Creating and Protecting Power, who art our 
Father, yea, our Mother not the less, we flee unto thee, 
and would lift up the psalm of our thanksgiving unto 
thee, and by our prayer seek to hold communion with 
thy spirit, and be strengthened for the cares and the 
duties and the delights of our mortal life. We come 
before thee, O Lord, with the remembrance of daily 
toils, and the common things of life still murmuring 
in our ears, and we would lift up our souls unto thee, 
to learn new wisdom, to acquire more justice, to feel 
a deeper philanthropy and a heartier piety in our own 
souls. We know that thou art not to be worshiped 
as though thou asketh even prayer at our poor lips, 
for we know that thou ever watchest over us, and fold- 



124 PRAYERS 

est the universe in thine arms of love, needing no 
prayer of ours to kindle thy sympathy to the humblest 
of thy creatures. Lord, the earth is thine altar, 
and the heavens over our head, they are the incense 
of creation offered in their beauty to thy greatness 
and thy glorious name. O Lord, the universe is a 
Toice of thanksgiving unto thee, and in serene and 
cloudy days this flying globe lifts up her voice, and 
sings to thee, morning and evening and at noon of 
day, her continual psalm of joy and praise. But our 
hearts in their poverty constrain us to flee unto thee, 
out of the sorrows and the joys of this world, to 
praise thee for thy blessings, and to ask of thee new- 
glories in time to come. We desire to be deeply con- 
scious of thy presence, which fills all time, which oc- 
cupies all space. We would know thee as thou art, 
and in our souls feel continually thy residence with us 
and the abiding of thy spirit in our heart. 

Father, we thank thee for this wondrous and lovely 
world in which thou hast placed us. For the magnifi- 
cent beauty of summer we thank thee, for the storied 
promise of the spring which has gone by, and the 
earnest of the harvest, whose weeks in their fulfilment 
bring daily new tokens of thy goodness and thine in- 
finite love. We thank thee that thou waterest the 
earth with rain from thine own sweet heavens, rejoic- 
ing the cattle on a thousand hills, which thou also 
carest for, as for thy chosen ones, and ministerest life 
to every little moss amid the stones of a city, and 
feedest the mighty forests which clothe with verdure 
our own New England hills. We thank thee that thou 
givest us grass for the cattle, and corn to strengthen 
the frame of man, and orderest all things by number 
and measure and weight, wielding the whole into a 



PRAYERS 125 

mighty mass of usefulness and a glorious orb of tran- 
scendent beauty. We bless thee for the beautiful amid 
the homely, the sublime among things low, for the 
good amid evil things, and the eternal amid what is 
transient and daily passing from our eye. 

We thank thee for the happiness that attends us 
in our daily life, for the joys of our daily work, for 
the success which thou givest to the labors of our hand, 
and the strength to our soul which comes from our 
daily toil on the earth. We thank thee for the plain 
and common household joys of life, for the satisfac- 
tions of friendship, for the blessedness of love in all 
the dear relationships of mortal life. Father, we 
thank thee for the large sympathy with our brother- 
men everywhere, and that we know that thou hast made 
them all alike in thine own image, and has destined 
all thy children to toil on the earth, and to a glorious 
immortality of never-ending blessedness beyond the 
grave. 

Father, we thank thee that we know thee, that amid 
hopes that so often deceive us, amid expectations that 
fall and perish, we have still our faith assured in thee, 
who art without variableness or shadow of turn- 
ing. O Lord, thou delightest us still more when we 
remember that our life itself is the gift of thine hand. 
In our sorrow and sadness we look up to thee, and 
when mortal friends fail us, and the urn that held our 
treasured joys is broken Into fragments, and the wine 
of life is scattered at our feet, O Lord, we rejoice 
to know that thou understandest our lot, and wilt make 
every sorrow of our life turn out for our endless wel- 
fare, and our continual growth, so that thou wilt take 
us home to thyself with no stain of weeping on our 
face. O Lord, when ourselves have been false, when 



126 PRAYERS 

our own hearts cry out against us, and we stain our 
daily sacrifice with remorseful tears, we rejoice to 
know that thou art greater than our heart, and wilt 
bring home every wandering child of thine, with no 
stain of sin on our immortal soul. Father, we thank 
thee that amid the joys of the flesh, amid the delights 
of our daily work, and all the sweet and silent blessed- 
ness of mortal friendship and love upon the earth, 
thou givest us the joy of knowing thee, the still and 
calm delight of lying low in thy hand, and feeling 
the breath of thy spirit upon us. Yea, Lord, we 
thank thee that thou boldest each one of us, yea, all 
of thy children, and the universe itself, as a mother 
folds her baby to her bosom, and blessest us all with 
thine infinite loving-kindness and thy tender mercy. 

O Father, we pray thee that we may never be false 
to the great glories with which thou surroundest us, 
under our feet, and over our head, and the still diviner 
glories which thou placest in our heart and soul. We 
pray thee that within us our lives may be blameless, 
every faculty active and at its work, and that our out- 
word lives may be useful, and all our existence blame- 
less and beautiful in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength 
and our Redeemer. May our lives be marked every 
day by some new lesson that we have learned, some 
duty that we have done, some faithfulness that we 
have accomplished; and at last, when our mortal pil- 
grimage is ended, take us to thyself, O Lord, to dwell 
with thee, leaving behind us the memory of good deeds, 
and bearing with us a soul disciplined by the trials of 
life, and enlarged by its blessings. So may we pass 
from glory to glory, till we are changed into thine own 
image, and the peace of thy love is made perfect in 
us. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven. 



PRAYERS in 



VI 



Our Father who art in heaven, who fillest all time 
with thine eternity and all space with thy loving-kind- 
ness and thy tender mercy, we flee unto thee once 
more, seeking to deepen our consciousness of thee, to 
pour out our heart's gratitude for thy daily blessings 
continually given unto us, and to seek new inspiration 
from thy spirit, extending everywhere. 

O Father, we thank thee for this world about us, 
and above us, and underneath our feet, which thou 
hast given us to dwell in. We thank thee for the 
ground that we tread on, for the trees that roof us 
over, for the bread that we eat, and for the fleeces 
that we wear. 

Father, we thank thee for all this wonderful beauty 
wherein thou speakest to the awakening sense of man. 
We bless thee for the day, which from thy golden 
urn thou pourest out upon the world, and that every 
morning thou baptizest anew each speck of earth with 
heaven's own light. We thank thee that thou whiten- 
est the darkness of the night by the moon's untiring 
beauty, and that thou pasturest the stars in thine own 
fields of boundless space, nor sufFerest thou a single 
fleece of light ever to be lost, thou Shepherd of the 
earth, and Shepherd of the sky. 

We thank thee for this nobler world of man, for 
its serener day, its light more heavenly, and all the 
blessed stars of consciousness that shine within our 
soul. We thank thee, that thou makest us capable 
to understand the material world that is about us, and 
to rule and master by wisdom, by justice, and by love, 
this greater, nobler world that we are. 

We thank thee for the still and silent joys that 



128 PRAYERS 

come to every earnest and holy heart. We bless thee 
for the happiness that attends our daily work, and 
all the things which thou givest us to do here on the 
earth. 

We thank thee that thou hast given us this im- 
mortal soul, which, feeding on the earth, grows for 
w^hat is more than earthly, and with great hungering 
of heart, reaches ever upwards for what is perfect, for 
what is good and beautiful and holy in thine own 
sight. We thank thee that, as thou feedest every 
plant with dew from heaven, and with light from the 
world's great sun, so with sweet influence thou rainest 
inspiration down upon thy children, and with thy 
loving-kindness wilt bless every soul, though wander- 
ing ofttimes from thee. 

We remember before thee our daily lives, the per- 
plexities of our business, the trials of our patience, 
ihe doubts, and the darkness, yea, and the sin that 
doth most easily beset us ; and we pray thee that we 
may be warned by all that we suffer, and urged on- 
wards by everything that we enjoy, till we have cast 
behind us the littleness of our childhood, and with 
manly, womanly dignity, pursue our march on earth, 
not weary though we run, and not fainting as we 
mount up like eagles towards thy perfection. 

We remember before thee the disappointments, the 
sadness, and the affliction of our mortal life. We 
remember how often our arms are folded around empti- 
ness, when the mortal whom we truly love has taken 
wings to itself and is immortal with thee. 

Father, we pray thee that thou wilt instruct us in 
these, our earthly misfortunes, and by every disap- 
pointment, and all affliction, may we grow wiser, and 
purer, more holy -hearted still ; and while in our feeble- 



PRAYERS 129 

ness we may not thank thee for what thou hast taken, 
O Lord, let us learn from sorrow a deeper lesson than 
joy and gladness ever bring. Even as the night re- 
Teals a whole heaven of stars, so may the darkness 
of disappointment, the night of sorrow, open heaven 
to thy children's eyes, till brighter beams are about 
us, and the consciousness of immortality fills up our 
souls and wipes the tears from every eye. 

So may all our mortal life be a journey upwards, 
and we fly forwards towards thee, till, at last, may 
thy truth, fill our understanding, may thy justice 
enlarge our heart and may love and holiness and faith 
in thee subdue every unholy thing, and change us 
anew to thine own image, O thou who art our Father 
and the Mother of our souls. So may thy kingdom 
come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

VII 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who fillest all the air that is 
about us, the ground underneath our feet, the heavens 
above our heads, who thyself art the spirit whereby 
and wherein we live and move and have our being, we 
would draw near to thee, who art never withdrawn 
from us, and feeling thine infinite presence in our 
heart and soul, would worship with our morning 
prayer, that we may serve thee in our daily, nightly, 
long-continuing life. O thou, who art the life of all 
things that live, and the being of whatsoever exists, 
we pray thee that thine infinite soul may stir us in 
our poor prayer, and quickened by thine infinite love 
may we ascend in our aspiring flight to higher and 
higher flights of nobleness, and human growth. 

O Lord, we bless thee for thy providence which 
broods over the world and blesses it with this four- 
XII— 9 



130 PRAYERS 

fold year. We bless thee for the summers and autumns 
that are gone by, for the winter whose brilliant gar- 
ment of resplendant snow has been so broadly spread 
across the shoulders of the continent, yea Lord, for 
all the providence whereby in winter thou preparest 
for spring, and makest the golden summer the fore- 
runner of autumn, radiant with beauty and abounding 
in fruit. 

O Lord, Father and Mother of the ground, the 
heavens, and all things that are, we bless thee for 
thy loving-kindness and thy tender mercy, we thank 
thee that thou art kind and bountiful in thy providence 
to every created thing, that from thy hand we take 
our daily bread, and from thy cup thou pourest out 
to us all things whereby we live and are blessed. We 
thank thee that thou watchest over us in our prosper- 
ity and in our distress, and followest the exile from 
his native land, giving the wanderer thy blessing, and 
when despair comes to thy children's heart that thou 
who knowest their weakness, takest them home to thy- 
self and blessest every wanderer with thine infinite 
peace, whence no soul shall ever be exiled long. 

O Lord, we thank thee for noble men that thou 
raisest up in the world, for those great souls who pro- 
claim truth to mankind, for those who reveal jus- 
tice to the earth, enacting it into laws and institu- 
tions, building up thy righteousness, thine ever-living 
truth. We thank thee for those great souls to whom 
thou confidest the precious charge of genius, blessing 
them with lofty gifts. We thank thee for the sons 
of song, waking sweet music in the hearts of men, 
and when their own body crumbles in the ground 
that their breath still surrounds the world with 
an ever-new morning of melody, coming to highest 



PRAYERS 131 

and lowest, and blending all into one magnificent 
family of souls who are lifted up by the sweet strains 
of art. O Lord, we thank thee also for those sons 
of genius who with kindred power stretch out their 
plastic hand over the hard elements of earth, which 
become pliant at their touch. Father, we thank thee 
for the creative genius of the sculptor which folds 
the kindred genius in brazen swadling bands, and so 
hands down form and lineaments, all glorified by art 
from age to age.^ O Lord, we bless thee for another 
power which is music and sculpture to other faculties, 
for the poet's kindling eye, his wide embracing heart, 
his vision, and his faculty divine, whereby to listen- 
ing crowds he interprets the spontaneous feelings of 
our hearts and makes perpetual in speech the transient 
feelings of the hour. O Lord, we thank thee for these 
whom thou hast blessed with creative genius in the 
intellectual sphere, and the moral; still more do we 
bless thee for those whom thou hast gifted with genius 
for loving-kindness and tender mercy, whose art is the 
art to love, and who in affection embalm such as are 
near and dear, and put great, all-embracing arms about 
the universe of men, lifting up the fallen, refining the 
low, raising those that are dropped down, and encour- 
aging the sons of men. O Father, while we bless thee 
for the sons of poetry and the children of song, and 
those great geniuses bom for creative art, still more 
do we bless thee for the dear fathers and the loving 
mothers, and the great philanthropists of the world 
who have blessed us with more than music, and make 
perpetual thy beneficence, which shall endure when the 
marble shall perish and brass exhales as vapor unseen 
and forgotten to the sky. 

O thouj who blessest us with manifold gifts we would 



132 PRAYERS 

ask of thee a double portion of the spirit of love, that 
while we serve thee with our hands, while we honor thee 
with our mind, while we serve thee with our conscience, 
we may serve thee more nobly still in sweet sacrificing 
love. May we so love thee, O Lord, that we shall feel 
thy spirit in us, that thy truth shall make us free, thy 
law be a lamp to our feet and a staff to our hands, 
and the love which thou bearest to every mute and 
every living thing a great welcome inspiration in our 
soul, bringing down every vain thing which unduly 
exalts itself, making us of cleaner eyes than to love 
iniquity, and setting our affections on things divine. 
O Lord, help us to love our brothers everywhere, not 
those alone who love us with answering touch of joy, 
but those who evil entreat and persecute and defame 
us. So may we be like thyself, causing thy sun to 
shine on the evil and on the good, and raining thy 
rain on the just and the unjust. Father, we ask 
thee for thy kingdom of heaven, its righteousness and 
mercy and love within our heart. May we chastise 
ourselves for every mean and wicked thing, set our 
soul in tune to the music of thine own spheres, and 
so hand in hand, accordant, journey round the world, 
blessing thee with toilsome hands, and inwardly blessed 
by the spirit thou puttest in our soul. 

VIII 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who art everywhere that the 
light of day sheds down its glorious luster, and in the 
caverns of the earth where the light of day cometh not, 
we would draw near to thee and worship thy spirit, 
which at all times is near to us. O thou Infinite One, 
who art amidst all the silences of nature, and forsakest 
us not with thy spirit where the noisy feet of men 



PRAYERS 133 

are continually heard, we praj thee that the spirit of ■ 
prayer may be in us while we lift up our hearts unto: 
thee. Thou askest not even our gratitude, but when 
our cup is filled with blessings to the brim and runneth 
over with bounties, we would remember thee who fillest- 
it, and givest every good and precious gift. 

Father, we thank thee for the special material bless- 
ings which we en j oy ; for the prosperity which has 
attended the labors of thy children in the months that 
are past, for the harvest of com and of grass whicK. 
the hand of man, obedient to his toilsome thought, has 
gathered up from the surface of the ground. We> 
bless thee that when our toil has spoken to the earth, 
the furrows of the field have answered with sufficient,, 
yea, with abundant returns of harvest to our hand. 
We thank thee for the blessings of the deep, and 
treasures hid in the sands, which thy children have 
gathered. We bless thee for the success which has^ 
come to those who go down to the sea in ships and 
do business in great waters. We thank thee for the 
treasures which our mining hand has gathered from 
the foldings of the earth, the wealth which we have 
quarried from the mountain, or digged out from the 
bosom of the ground. And we bless thee for the other 
harvests which from these rude things the toilsome 
hand and the laborious thought of men have created, 
turning use into beauty also, and so adorning and 
gladdening the world. 

We thank thee for the special blessings that come 
near to us this day. We bless thee for the health of 
our bodies, and we thank thee for those who are near 
and dear to us ; and for all the gladsome gatherings to- 
gether which this day will bring to pass, of parents 
and their children, long severed, or of the lover and 



134 PRAYERS 

his beloved, who so gladly would become one. We 
bless thee for all those who this day shall break their 
bread in common, lifting up their hearts unto thee, 
and blessing the hand which lengthens out our days 
and keeps the golden bowl from breaking at the foun- 
tain ; and we thank thee for those who in many a dis- 
tant place are still of us, — severed in the body, but 
with us yet in soul. 

We remember before thee not only our families and 
our homes, but likewise the great country in which 
thou hast cast the lines of our lot. We thank thee for 
its wide extent, for the great riches which the toil of 
man has here gathered together and stored up. We 
bless thee for the multitudes of people, an exceeding 
great company of men and women, who here have 
sprung into existence under thy care. We bless thee 
that in this land the exile from so many a clime can 
find a home, with none to molest nor to make him 
afraid. We thank thee for every good institution 
which has here been established, for all the truth that is 
taught in the church, for what of justice has become 
the common law of the people, and for all of righteous- 
ness and of benevolence which goes forth in the midst 
of our land. 

We bless thee for our fathers who in centuries past, 
in the name of thy holy spirit, and for the sake of 
rights dearest to mankind, went from one country to 
another people, and in their day of small things came 
here. Yea, we thank thee for those whose only com- 
munion was an exile, and we bless thee for the bravery 
of their spirit which would not hang the harp on the 
willow, but sang songs of thanksgiving in a strange 
land, and in the midst of their wilderness builded a new 
Zion up, full of thanksgiving and song and praise. 



PRAYERS 135 

We bless thee for our fathers of a nearer kin, who 
in a day of peril strove valiantly that they might be 
free, and bequeathed a noble heritage to their sons and 
daughters who were to come after them. Yea, we 
thank thee for those whose sacrament was only a revo- 
lution, and the cup of blessing was of blood drawn from 
their own manly veins ; and we bless thee for the hardy 
valor which drew their sword, and sheathed it not till they 
had a large place, and their inalienable rights secured 
to them by their own right hand, toiling and striving 
under the benediction of thy precious providence. 
Now, Lord, we thank thee that the few have become a 
multitude, and the little vine which our fathers planted 
with their tears and watered with their blood, reaches 
from sea to sea, great clusters of riches hanging on 
every bough, and its root strong in the land. 

But we remember before thee the great sins which 
this nation has wrought, and while we thank thee 
for the noblest heritage which man ever inherited from 
man, we must mourn also that we have blackened the 
ground with crimes such as seldom a nation has com- 
mitted against thee. Yea, Lord, even our thanksgiving 
prayer must be stained with our tears of mourning, 
and our psalm of thanksgiving must be mingled with 
the wail of those who lament that they have no hope 
left for them in the earth. Father, we remember our 
brothers of our own kin and complexion whom wicked- 
ness has smitten down in another land, whose houses are 
burned and their wives given up to outrage. We re- 
member those who walk only in chains this day, and 
are persecuted for their righteousness' sake. And still 
more in our prayer we remember the millions of our 
brothers whom our fathers chained, and whose fetters 
our wicked hands have riveted upon their limbs. 



136 PRAYERS 

Lord, Tve pray thee that we may suffer from these our 
transgressions, till we learn to eschew evil, to break 
the rod of the oppressor, and to let the oppressed go 
free; yea, till we make our rulers righteousness, and 
those chief amongst us whose glory it is to serve man- 
kind by justice, by fidelity, and by truth. 

We pray thee, on this day of our gratitude, that we 
may rouse up everything that is humanest in our heart, 
pledging ourselves anew to do justly and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly before thee, O thou our Father 
and bur Mother on earth and in the heavens too. 
Thus, Lord, may our thanksgiving be worthy of the na- 
ture thou hast given us and the heritage thou hast be- 
queathed. Thus may our psalm of gratitude be a 
hymn of thanksgiving for millions who have broken off 
their chains, and for a great country full of joy, of 
blessedness, of freedom, and of peace. So may thy 
kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is 
in heaven. 

THANKSGIVING DAY. 

IX 

O thou Infinite One, who fillest the ground under 
our feet and the heavens over our head, whither shall 
we go from thy spirit or whither shall we flee from thy 
presence .f^ If we take the wings of the morning and 
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall 
thy hand lead us, and thy right hand shall hold us up. 
If we say. Surely the darkness shall cover us, even the 
darkness shall be light about us ; yea, the darkness 
hideth not from thee, but the darkness and the light 
are both alike to thee. 

Father, we know that at all times and in every place 
thou wilt remember us, nor askest thou the persuasive 



PRAYERS 137 

music of our morning hymn, nor our prayer's poor ut- 
terance, to stir thy loving-kindness towards us; for 
thou carest for us when sleep has sealed our senses up 
and we heed thee no more ; yea, when enveloped in the 
smoke of human ignorance or of folly, thine eye is still 
upon us, thou understandest our needs, and doest for us 
more and better than we are able to ask, or even to 
think. But in our feebleness and our darkness, we 
love to flee unto thee, who art the light of all our 
being, the strength of all which is strong, the wisdom 
of what is wise, and the foundation of all things that 
are ; and while we lift up our prayer of aspiration unto 
thee, and muse on thy presence with us, and the various 
events of our life, the fire of devotion must needs flame 
in our heart, and gratitude dwell on our tongue. 

Father, we thank thee for the world about us and 
above and beneath. We bless thee for the austere love- 
liness of the wintry heavens, for those fixed or wander- 
ing fires which lend their splendor to the night, for 
the fringe of beauty wherewith thou borderest the 
morning and the evening sky, and for this daily sun 
sending his roseate flush of light across the white and 
wintry world. We thank thee for all the things that 
are kindly to our flesh, which our toil has won from out 
the brute material world. 

We bless thee for all the favorable things that are 
about us; for those near and dear to us, whom we 
watch over, and those who long since watched over and 
blessed us. We thank thee for wise words spoken to 
us in our childhood or our youth, for the examples 
of virtue which were round us, and for the tender voice 
which spoke to our spirit in early days, and wakened 
in us a sense of reverence, of love, and of trust in thy 
spirit. We thank thee for the fathers and mothers 



138 PRAYERS 

who bore us, for the kinsfolk, the friends, the acquaint- 
ance, and the teachers, who brought us reverently up; 
for all the self-denial which watched over our cradles, 
which held our head when our heart was sick, sheltering 
us from the world's hardness, holding up our childish 
hands when they hung down, and guiding our tottering 
footsteps when we ran giddy in the paths of youth. 
Yea, we thank thee for all the examples of excellence, 
the words of kindly remonstrance and virtuous leading, 
which have been a lamp to our path, showing us the 
way in which we should go. 

We thank thee for the noble institutions which have 
come down to us ; for the Church, with its many words 
of truth and its recollections of ancient piety ; for the 
State, with its wise laws; for the community, which 
puts its social hospitable walls about us from the day 
of our birth till we are cradled again in our coffin, 
and the sides of the pit are sweet to our crumbUng 
flesh. 

We remember before thee the ages that are past and 
gone, and thank thee for the great men whom thou 
causedest to spring up in those days, great flowers of 
humanity, whose seeds have been scattered broadcast 
along the world, making the solitary place into a gar- 
den and the wilderness to blossom Hke a rose. We 
bless thee for the great men who founded the State, 
and for the inventors of useful things, large-minded 
men who thought out true ideas, and skilful-handed 
folk who made their lofty thought an exceeding useful 
thing. We thank thee for those strong men of sci- 
ence in whose hands the ark of truth has been borne 
ever onward from age to age, for poets and philoso- 
phers whose deep vision beheld the truth when other 
men perceived it not, and for those gifted women 



PRAYERS 1S9 

whose presentient soul ran before the mighty prophet's 
thoughtful eye, forefeeling light when yet the very 
East was dark with night. Yea, we thank thee for the 
goodly fellowship of all these prophets of glory, the 
glorious company of such apostles, and the noble army 
o£ martyrs, who were faithful even unto death. 

Chiefliest of all do we bless thee for that noble son 
of thine, born of a peasant mother and a peasant sire, 
who in days of great darkness went before men, his 
life a pillar of fire leading them unto marvelous light 
and peace and beauty. We thank thee for his words, 
so lustrous with truth, for his life, fragrant all through 
with piety and benevolence; yea. Lord, we bless thee 
for the death which sinful hands nailed into his lacer- 
ated flesh, where through the wounds the spirit escaped 
triumphant unto thee, and could not be holden of mor- 
tal death. We thank thee for the triumphs which at- 
tend that name of Jesus, for the dear blessedness which 
his life has bestowed upon us, smoothing the pathway 
of toil, softening the pillow of distress, and brightening 
the way whereon truth comes down from thee, and life 
to thee goes ever ascending up. Father, we thank thee 
for the blessings which this great noble soul has widely 
scattered throughout the world, and most of all for 
this, that his spark of fire has revealed to us thine own 
divinity enlivening this mortal human clod, and prophe- 
sying such noble future of achievement here on earth 
and in thine own kingdom of heaven with thee. 

Father, we thank thee also for the unmentioned mar- 
tyrs, for the glorious company of prophets whom his- 
tory makes no written record of, but whose words and 
whose lives are garnered up in the great life of hu- 
manity. 

Lord, we bless thee for all these, and, in our own 



140 PRAYERS 

day, when thou hast given us so many talents and the 
opportunity so glorious for their use, we pray thee 
that we may distinguish between the doctrines of men 
and thine eternal commandments, and that no reverence 
for the old may blind our eyes to evils that have come 
down from other days, and no fondness for new things 
ever lead us to grasp the hidden evil when we take the 
specious good ; but may we separate between the right 
and the wrong, and choose those things that are wise 
to direct, and profitable for our daily use. O Lord, 
when we compare our own poor lives with the ideal 
germ which warms in our innermost soul, longing to 
be itself a strong and flame-like flower, we are ashamed 
that our lives are no better, and we pray thee that in 
time present and in all time to come we may summon 
up the vigor of our spirit, and strive to live lives of 
such greatness and nobleness that we shall bless our 
children and all who come after us, giving them better 
institutions than ourselves have received, and bequeath- 
ing to them a more glorious character than was trans- 
mitted to us. May we cultivate every noble faculty 
of our nature, giving to every limb of the body its 
proper place and enjoyment, and over all the humbler 
faculties may we enthrone the great commanding pow- 
ers, which shall rule and regulate our life into order 
and strength and beauty, and fill our souls with the 
manifold delight of those who know thee and serve 
thee and love thee with all their understanding and all 
their heart. 

In the stern duties which are before us. Father in 
heaven, may thy light burn clear in our tabernacle, and 
when thou callest us may our lamps be trimmed and 
burning, our loins girt about, our feet ready sandaled 
for the road, and our souls prepared for thee. Thus 



PRAYERS 141 

may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth 
as it is in heaven. 



O thou Infinite Spirit, who art present where two 
or three are gathered together, and who with all thine 
infinite perfections encampest about each solitary soul, 
we would draw near unto thee, who art never far from 
any one of us, and in thy presence gird up our souls 
and worship thee with such communion and income of 
spirit in our morning prayer that we shall serve thee 
all our life, bearing with patience our daily cross, and 
reverently doing with strength the duties thou givest 
us to do. May we worship thee who art spirit, with 
our spirit and the truth of every faculty; and wilt 
thou, who seekest such to worship thee, accept the psalm 
of our lips and the aspiring of our heart. 

O thou Infinite One, we thank thee for the winter 
with which thou hast overcast the world, for we know 
that in every fi.ake of snow thou sheddest from the 
heavens thou hast a benediction writ for all mankind, 
could our eyes but read the lustrous prophecy so curi- 
ously announced. 

We thank thee that thou givest to mankind, in our 
body and in our soul, the power over these material 
things that are about us. We thank thee that in the 
midst of the winter's snow we can build us our pleasant 
habitation, and have a perennial summer all safe from 
winter's desolating frost. We thank thee for the large 
power thou hast given us to make even the storms serve 
the voyage of our life, and to use the very ice of north- 
ern realms as the servant of man's pleasure and the 
handmaid of his health. Father, we bless thee for the 



14^ PRAYERS 

wondrous faculties which thou hast treasured up within 
the frame of man. 

We bless thee for all periods in our life. We thank 
thee for the infancy, which is from thine own kingdom 
of heaven, cradled in love on earth, the little flower 
prophetic of other love that is to come, given not less 
than received, in the never-ending progress of the 
immortal soul. We thank thee for the period of the 
young man's and the young woman's life, when the 
body, unwonted to the experience of the world, runs 
over with the vernal energies of life's incipient year. 
We thank thee for the energy of passion, and the 
power of soul which thou givest us to tame this creature 
into wise and virtuous strength. We bless thee for the 
high hopes, the generous aspirations, and the quick 
and mounting instincts of the soul, which belong to the 
young man's life. We bless thee for the hardier vigor 
of the middle-aged, whom experience has made more 
wise, and we thank thee that frequent stumbling bids 
us take heed to our ways, and by many a failure and 
fall mankind is warned of the difficulties that beset his 
path. We thank thee for the mighty power of will 
that can restrain passion in its instinctive swing, and 
hold ambition from its wicked aim, which else might 
mar and desolate the soul. We thank thee for the yet 
later period, when thou crownest the experienced head 
with silver hairs without, and within hivest up the 
manifold treasures of long-continued life. Father, we 
thank thee for the Instinctive power of the young, the 
sober calculating strength of the middle-aged, and 
the long-treasured glories of old men, found in the 
paths of righteousness, whose head is a lamp of white 
fire carried before us to warn us of the wrong, and to 
guide thy children to ever-increasing heights of hu- 
man excellence. 



PRAYERS 143 

O Lord, we pray thee that we may all of us use so 
nobly the nature thou hast given us, that in early, or 
in middle, or in advanced life, there may be such a 
strength of pious trust in thee as shall give thy chil- 
dren the victory in the day of their youth, and they 
may overcome the passions which else would war 
against the soul ; and, In the middle way of mortal life, 
may it abate the excessive zeal of ambitious selfishness, 
and bring down all covetousness and every proud thing 
that unduly exalts itself against thee ; and in the later 
days of mankind, may it be a strong staff in the old 
man's hand, and a lamp full of heavenly fire which 
goes before his experienced feet, guiding him still 
farther forward, still higher upward, and leading to 
serene and blameless abodes of beauty and of oneness 
with thee. 

O thou Infinite One, we thank thee for the oppor- 
tunities of our daily life. And for its trials, shall we 
not thank thee? If in our feebleness we dare not 
thank thee for the crosses that are laid on us and the 
disappointments which vex our mortal aff^ections, still, 
O Lord, we will bow our faces before thee, and with 
thankful hearts exclaim, The Lord giveth, let him take 
away when he will. 

Father, we pray thee that we may live so generous 
and aspire so high that our noblest prayer shall be the 
practice of our daily life, and so by continual ascen- 
sion we shall rise up towards thee, enriched from thy 
fulness of joy, and the gladness and peace which thou 
givest, with no miracle, to every earnest and aspiring 
child of thine. So may thy kingdom come, and thy 
will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 



144* PRAYERS 



XI 



O thou Infinite Presence, who art close to each of 
us, we would draw near to thee, and lift up our souls 
unto thee, who art to be worshiped In spirit and In 
truth. O Lord, whither shall we flee from thy spirit, 
or whither shall we go from thy presence? In the 
beauty of summer thou wert with us, and out of genial 
skies sent down thy sweet beatitude of loving-kindness 
and tender mercy, and in the midst of winter thou art 
with us still, In the ground under our feet and the 
heavens above our head, and thine exceeding precious 
providence tempers even the austerity of the season for 
the world's great wants. 

Father, we thank thee for all the periods of our 
earthly life. We bless thee that we are born of thy 
kingdom of heaven and come into this world, darting 
before us the prophetic rays of noble growth In times 
that are to come. Yea, we thank thee that from this 
morning dawn of Infancy there goes out so fair and 
glorious a light, adorning the little home, and shed- 
ding Its splendor far up the sky, leading the parental 
vision farther and farther on. We bless thee for the 
young men and women, and the middle-aged, for their 
stalwart strength of body and mind, their vigorous 
hope, and their power to do, to be, and to suffer, and 
to grow greater and greater. We thank thee for the 
duties which thou givest thy children to do, and the 
strength with which thou girdest their loins, and the 
power with which thou anointest their heads. We re- 
member before thee the venerable face and the hoary 
hairs, which thou givest as the crown of life to those 
who pass on In the journey of time, doing Its duties, 
bearing its cross, and tasting Its cup of joy and of 



PRAYERS 145 

grief. We thank thee for the strong beauty of ven- 
erable age when it is found in the way of righteousness, 
and the firm and manly form goes before mankind, with 
the light of righteousness shining white and beauteous 
from the aged head. 

O Lord, we thank thee for the blessed light of im- 
mortality which thou sheddest down on all the periods 
of human life, shining in its morning freshness on the 
baby's cradle, tending in its meridian march the prog- 
ress of the grown man, and for the evening brilliancy, 
the many-colored rays of hope and beauty, wherewith 
it silvers the countenance of the old man. O Lord, 
when thou takest to thyself, out of the midst of us, 
the young, the middle-aged, or those venerable with 
accumulated time and manifold righteousness, we thank 
thee that we know they but rest from their labors, and 
their good works, gathered up in their character, fol- 
low them, and shine with them as a raiment of glory 
in the kingdom of heaven, brightening and bright- 
ening for ever and for ever, unto still more perfect 
day. 

O Lord, we thank thee for our fathers who brought 
us up, who have gone before us and blessed us with 
manifold kindness and tenderness ; and we bless thee 
also for the mothers who bore and carefully tended us, 
and watched over our little heads, and trained our 
infantile feet to walk in the ways of pleasantness and 
in the paths of peace. 

We thank thee for the noble nature which thou hast 

given to woman, for the various faculties wherein she 

differs from man, for her transcendent mind which 

anticipates his slower thought. We bless thee for her 

generous instincts of morality, of loving-kindness and 

tender mercy, and that deep religious power of intui- 
XII— 10 



146 PRAYERS 

tion whereby she communes with thy spirit face to face, 
and knows thee and loves thee with an exceeding depth 
of noble heart. We thank thee for the great and lus- 
trous women of other times and our own age, who 
spoke as they were moved by thy spirit, or who, with 
lives more eloquent than speech, ran before the world's 
great prophets and redeemers, smoothing the pathway 
which rougher feet were yet to tread, and shedding the 
balsam of their benediction on the air which mankind 
was to breathe. We bless thee for the noble and gener- 
ous women in our own day, engaged in the various 
callings and lots of human life. We thank thee for 
those who relieve the sick, who recall the wandering 
from the way of wickedness, who smooth the pillow 
of suffering, who teach and instruct those that are 
ignorant, who lift up such as are fallen down, and 
overtake the aged or the juvenile wanderers who are 
outcasts from the world. Father, we thank thee for all 
these blessings which thou givest to the world in this 
portion of humanity. 

We bless thee for those noble and generous emo- 
tions which thou hast placed within the soul of man, 
for the continual progress which they are making, and 
the certainty of their triumph at last over all malice, 
and wrath, and hate, and everything which makes war 
on the earth. We thank thee for the far-reaching 
love that goes out towards those who need the assist- 
ance of our arm, and for that feeling, stronger than 
the earthly interests of the body, which leads us to 
forgive every wrong which our brothers trespass 
against us. 

We bless thee for the religious faculty which thou 
hast placed here within us, that in our darkness it gives 
us something of morning light, and, when other things 



PRAYERS 147 

fail and pass away, it breaks through the clouds, and 
looks up to thine own kingdom of eternal peace, and 
there finds comfort and rest for the soul. Lord, 
we thank thee that thereby thou art to us exceeding 
near, strengthening us in our weakness, enlightening 
in our ignorance, warning in temptation ; and, when 
we go stooping and feeble, our faces bowed down with 
sorrow, we thank thee that in the midst of this outer 
darkness, in our heart it is all full of glorious light, 
and thy presence is there, and thy peace is spread 
abroad on the afflicted and mourning one. 

Father, when thou gatherest to thyself those who 
are of our earthly family, changing their countenance 
and taking them away from our arms, if we are not 
strong enough to thank thee for all the angels which 
descend and come into our house and bear away thence 
those whom our hearts most tenderly do love, still we 
thank thee that we know it is thine angel which comes, 
and thou sendest him here on an errand of mercy, and 
we thank thee that our soul can follow along the lumi- 
nous track which the fiery chariot of Death has left 
behind, and our eye can rest on the spiritual form now 
clothed with immortality, and dearer to us still than 
when on earth. We thank thee that through all the 
clouds of grief and sorrow thy Holy Ghost comes down 
with quickening influence, bringing healing on his 
wings, and shedding abroad the glorious sacrament of 
consolation on eyes that weep, and stealing into the 
most secret heart that mourns. 

Father, we remember before thee those who are 
needy, who in this inclement season of the year are 
pinched with cold, whom hunger looks sternly in the 
face, and we pray thee that our own hearts may be 
opened to do good and to communicate to those who 



148 PRAYERS 

need our service, and whom our alms-giving may 
doubly bless. 

Help us, O thou Infinite Father, to use the nature 
thou hast given us wisely and well. We would not 
ask thee to change thy law, the same yesterday, to-day, 
and for ever, but pray that ourselves may accord our 
dispositions to thine own infinite excellence, and order 
the outgoings and incomings of our heart in such wis- 
dom that our lives shall continually be in accordance 
with thy life, and that thy will shall be the law of our 
spirits, and thy love prevail for ever in our hearts. 
So may we be adorned and strengthened with mani- 
fold righteousness, mount up with wings as eagles, run 
and not be weary, or walk and never faint. So may 
thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as 
it is in heaven. 

XII 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who thyself art perpetual 
presentness, whom heaven and the heaven of heavens 
cannot contain, but who hast thy dwelling-place in 
every little flower that blooms, and in every humble 
heart, — we would draw near unto thee, and worship in 
thy presence, with such lifting up of our heart and 
our soul that all our daily lives may be a continual 
service before thee, and all our days thy days. We 
know that thou needest not to be worshiped, nor askest 
our prayer's poor homage at our lips; but, conscious 
of our dependence on thee, feeling our weakness and 
our ignorance, and remembering the blessings with 
which thou fillest our cup, we flee unto thee, and would 
pour forth the psalm of our morning prayer, that we 
may be strengthened and blessed by the great religious 
emotions which raise us up to thee. 



PRAYERS 149 

Father, we thank thee for the exceeding beauty of 
this wintry day, we bless thee for the ever-welcome 
countenance of the sun, so sweetly looking down upon 
our northern land, and bidding winter flee. We thank 
thee for the moon which scarfs with loveliness the re- 
treating shoulders of the night, and for all the won- 
drous majesty of stars wherewith thou hast spangled 
the raiment of darkness, giving beauty to the world 
when the sun withdraws his light. 

Father, we thank thee for all thy precious provi- 
dence which rules over the summer and the winter, 
the spring and the autumn, beautifying this various 
and fourfold year. We thank thee that thy spirit is 
with us even in the darkness, which is no darkness with 
thee, but under thy care we can lay us down and sleep 
in safety, — thou giving to thy beloved even in our 
sleep, — and when we awake we are still with thee. 

We thank thee for the great land in which we live ; 
we bless thee for its favored situation, and its wide 
spread from ocean to ocean, from lake to gulf. We 
thank thee for the millions of people who have grown 
up here in the midst of the continent. We bless thee 
for all the good institutions which are established here ; 
we thank thee for whatsoever of justice is made into 
law of the State, for all of piety, of loving-kindness, 
and tender mercy which are taught in many a various 
church, and practised by noble women and earnest 
men. 

We bless thee for our fathers, who in their day of 
small things put their confidence in thee, and went 
from one kingdom to another people, few and 
strangers there, and at last, guided by a religious star, 
came to this land, and put up their prayers in a wilder- 
ness. We thank thee that the desert place has become 



150 PRAYERS 

a garden, and the wild forest, full of beasts and prowl- 
ing men, is tenanted now with cities and beautiful with 
towns. We bless thee for the great men whom thou 
gavest us at every period of our nation's story; we 
thank thee for such as were wise in council, those also 
who were valiant in fight, and by whose right arm our 
redemption was wrought out. We thank thee for those 
noblest men and women who were filled with justice, 
with benevolence, and with piety, and who sought to 
make thy constitution of the universe the common law 
of all mankind. We bless thee for those whose names 
have gone abroad among the nations of the earth to 
encourage men of righteousness and to turn many 
from the evil of their ways. 

We thank thee for the unbounded wealth which has 
been gathered from our fields, or drawn from the sea, 
or digged from the bosom of the earth, and wrought 
out in our manifold places of toil throughout the land. 
We bless thee for the schools which let light in on 
many a dark and barren place ; and we thank thee for 
noble and generous men and women in our own day, 
who speak as they are moved by thy holy spirit, and 
turn many unto righteousness. 

But we mourn over the wickedness that is still so 
common in our land; we lament at the folly and the 
sin of those in high place, and the others who seek high 
place ; we lament that they tread thy people down, and 
bear a false witness in the land. We thank thee that 
the world's exiles find here a shelter and a home, with 
none to molest nor make them afraid; but we mourn 
also that the world's saddest exiles are still our own 
persecuted and afflicted and smitten. We remember 
before thee the millions of men whose hands are chained 
that they may not lift them up, and whose intellect 



PRAYERS 151 

and conscience the wicked statutes of men still keep in 
Egyptian night. O Lord, we pray thee that we may 
suffer for all the wickedness that we commit, till we 
learn to turn off from the evil of our ways, and exe- 
cute thy commandments, and follow after the right- 
eousness which thou hast written in our heart. We 
pray thee that thou wilt chastise us in our property 
and in our lives, till we learn to put away from the 
midst of us the yoke of bondage, and to smite no longer 
with the fist of wickedness. 

We remember before thee our own private lives, the 
joys thou givest us, our daily bread and our nightly 
sleep, the strength of our bodies, so wonderfully made, 
and the vigor and hope of our intellect, conquering the 
world; yea, we thank thee for the affections which join 
us together, and the soul which unites us to thee. We 
remember before thee the duties thou givest us to do, 
and we will not ask thee to do our work, wherefor thou 
hast given us sufficient strength ; but we pray thee that 
with manly and womanly might we may exercise the 
faculties thou hast given us, and do our work whilst 
it is yet called day. May there be in us such a rever- 
ence for thy being and those qualities which are thy- 
self, that every day we shall serve thee with blameless 
fidelity, and grow constantly in grace, attaining nearer 
and nearer to the measure of the stature of a perfect 
man. When we turn from thy ways, and, bleeding, 
come back again, may we be taught thereby to wander 
no more from the paths of righteousness, but ever to 
journey in those ways which are pleasantness and lead 
to peace. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven. 



152 PRAYERS 



XIII 



O thou Infinite Power, whom men call by varying 
names, but whose grandeur and whose love no name 
expresses and no words can tell ; O thou Creative Cause 
of all, Conserving Providence to each, we flee unto thee, 
and would seek for a moment to be conscious of the 
sunlight of thy presence, that we may lift up our souls 
unto thee, and fill ourselves with exceeding comfort 
and surpassing strength. We know that thou wilt 
draw near unto us when we also draw near unto thee. 
Father, we thank thee that while heaven and the 
heaven of heavens cannot contain thine all-transcendent 
being, yet thou livest and movest and workest in all 
things that are, causing, guiding, and blessing all and 
each. 

We thank thee for the lovely day which thou pourest 
down on the expectant world, giving the hills and the 
valleys a foretaste of the spring that is to come. We 
thank thee for the glories thou revealest to the world 
in darkness, where star after star travels in its far 
course, or to the human eye is ever fixed, and all of 
these speak continually of thy wisdom and thy glory, 
and shine by thy love's exceeding, never-ending light. 

We bless thee for the love which thou bearest to 
all the creatures which thou hast made. We thank 
thee that we know that thou art our Father and our 
Mother, and tenderly watchest over us in manifold and 
secret ways, bringing good out of evil, and better 
thence again, leading forward thy child from baby- 
hood to manhood, and the human race from its wild 
estate to far transcending nobleness of soul. 

Father, we thank thee for the vast progress which 
mankind has made in the ages that are behind us. We 



PRAYERS 15a 

bless thee that truth is stronger than error, and justice 
breaks down every throne of unrighteousness, and the 
gentleness of love is far stronger than all the energy 
of wrath, and so from age to age gains the victory 
over the savage instincts of wild men. 

We thank thee for the great men and women whom 
thou in all times hast raised up, the guides and teach- 
ers unto humbler-gifted men. We thank thee for the 
philosophers who have taught us truth, and for the 
great poets who have touched man's heart with the 
fire of heaven and stirred to noble deeps the human 
soul. We bless thee for those expounders of thy law 
whose conscience has revealed thine ever live ideas of 
justice, and who have taught them to men. We bless 
thee for those warm-hearted champions of mankind 
whose arms of philanthropy clasp whole nations to 
their heart, warmed with the noble personal life of 
such. Yea, we thank thee for those of great religious 
sense, who have taught mankind truer ideas of thee, 
and wisely guided the souls of men, thereby controlling 
passion and leading thy children in paths of pleasant- 
ness and of peace. We thank thee that in no land 
hast thou ever left thyself without a witness, and while 
material nature proclaims thy glory, and day unto 
day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth 
forth thy praise, that our human nature still more 
largely proclaims thy greatness and thy goodness, and 
the presence of thy providence, watching over all. 
We thank thee for the goodly fellowship of prophets 
in all lands, and called by many names ; for the glori- 
ous company of apostles, speaking in every tongue, 
and the noble army of martyrs, whose blood, redden- 
ing the soil of the whole world, has made it fertile for 
noble human purposes. 



154 PRAYERS 

And, while we thank thee for these, we bless thee 
also for the unrecorded millions of men of common 
faculties, who were the human soil whereon these trees 
of human genius stood, and grew their leaves so shady 
and so green, and their fruit so sound and fair. O 
Lord, we thank thee for the humble toiling millions of 
men who earnestly looked for the light, and finding 
walked therein, passing upward and onward towards 
thy kingdom, blessed by thee. 

We thank thee for all the triumphs which mankind 
has achieved, by the few of genius or the many who 
have had faithful and earnest souls. We thank thee 
for all of truth that is demonstrated in science, for all 
of beauty that is writ in poetry or stamped on the 
rock by art. We bless thee for what of justice is 
recorded in books, or embodied in institutions and 
laws. We thank thee for that philanthropy which 
begins to bless the world, and here in our own land 
achieves such noble works. And we thank thee for 
what we know of true religion, of the piety that warms 
the innermost heart, and the morality which keeps the 
laws which thou hast writ. 

We bless thee that in this land all men are free to wor- 
ship thee as they will, or to close their e3^es and look 
not at thine image, no human scourge laid on their 
earnest flesh. Father, we thank thee for the great re- 
ligious ideas which have sprung down from heaven in 
our own day, unknown to ancient times, and for the 
light which they shed along the path of duty, in the 
way even of transgression, and for the glorious hope 
which they enkindle everywhere. 

And while we thank thee for these things, we pray 
thee that we may walk faithful to the nature thou hast 
given us, and the light which has dawned down from 



PRAYERS 155 

heaven all around. Father, we thank thee for the 
power of gratitude which thou givest to thy children, 
for the joy which men take in favors received from the 
highest or the humblest of the earth, and the far ex- 
ceeding delight which comes to our soul from the con- 
sciousness of receiving blessings from thyself, who 
givest to mankind so liberally and upbraidest not, nor 
askest ever for our gratitude, but still art kind even to 
unthankful and to wicked men. 

Father, we bless thee for such as love us and those 
whom we love in the varying forms of affection, thank- 
ing thee for the sacramental cup of joy in which thou 
givest the wine of life to all of thy children, humble or 
high. 

Father, when we suffer in our hearts, when our 
houses are hung with blackness, and the shadow of 
death falls on the empty seat of those dear and once 
near to us, we know that there is mercy in all that 
thou sendest, and through the darkness we behold thy 
light, and thank thee for the lilies of Solomon that 
spring out of the ground which Death has burned over 
with his blackness and sprinkled with the ashes of our 
sorrow. 

We remember before thee the various temptations 
with which we are tried, praying thee that in the hour 
of passion the youth may be strong and find himself a 
way of escape from its seductive witchery; and in the 
cold and more dangerous hour of ambition, when the 
maturer flesh so often goes astray, we pray thee that 
we may turn off from covetousness, from desire of 
power and vain-glory amongst men, and keep our souls 
clean and undefiled in the midst of a world where sin 
and wickedness walk in the broad day. Father, within 
our soul may there be such an earnest and strong love 



156 PRAYERS 

of the qualities of thy being that we shall keep every 
law which thou hast writ on our sense or in our soul, 
and do justly and love mercy and walk manfully with 
thee, doing our duty with nobleness of endeavor, and 
bearing such cross as time and chance, happening to 
all, may lay on us. So may thy kingdom come, and 
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XIV 

O thou Perpetual Presence, whom our hearts con- 
strain us to bow down before, and delightedly to look 
up to, we would draw near to thee once more, secluding 
our spirits for a moment from all the noises of the 
world, and continue the psalm of our thanksgiving 
by aspirations of the soul that are higher and higher 
yet. We know that thou rememberest us, nor needest 
thou the music of our psalm nor the faint warbling of 
our prayer to stir thy fatherly and motherly heart to 
bestow upon us thy tender mercy and thy loving-kind- 
ness. Yea, we know that when earthly father and 
mother forget us and let us fall, thou takest us up, 
and in thy right hand bearest thy children forward; 
nay, when in the wickedness of our heart or the frailty 
of our flesh we break thy laws and would hide our 
faces from thee, thou still revealest thyself in justice 
and in love, and in secret ways overtakest us, liftest 
us up when we have fallen, and leadest us from our 
errors and our sins. 

O thou Infinite One, we thank thee for the fairness 
and the beauty which thou pourest down from the 
heavens above our head. We bless thee for the genial 
warmth which goes abroad in the air this day from the 
golden shining of the sun. We thank thee for the 
footsteps of spring throughout our northern land, 



PRAYERS 157 

giving new vigor to the cattle's grass, and causing 
hope to spring up with, the farmer's slow-ascending 
corn. We thank thee for the promise of the season, 
silent or musical, in all the tenants of the sky, and for 
the prophecy which begins to blossom from many a 
tree, foretelling the glorious summer, and the appointed 
weeks of harvest, which are yet to come. We thank 
thee for the ground under our feet, the great foodful 
earth, and the heavens above our head, and for the 
whole universe of worlds which thou hast created, and 
sustainest with thy presence, filling all things with life, 
and enchanting the whole with order and beauty and 
love. We thank thee that by ways which as yet we 
know not, thou bringest many things to pass, and 
makest all this globe of lands, and these heavens, and 
the secret forces which are hid everywhere in ocean, 
land, and sky, to serve the great purposes of human- 
kind. We thank thee for the meaning that is con- 
cealed in every stone, or which flames out in the flowers 
of the field or the stars of heaven, teaching wisdom to 
all of thy thoughtful daughters and thy sons. 

Father, we thank thee for the revelation which this 
outward world of nature makes of thyself, that above 
us and about us there is continually thy presence, 
which shines in the stars of night, and moves in the 
wind by day, and grows in the grass, and all things 
doth pervade. We thank thee that thy providence 
watches over all, the world of matter and the world 
of conscious life; that thou orderest all of our move- 
ments, and from the beginning understandest the well- 
prepared end, making all things work together for 
thy final purpose of eternal good. 

We thank thee for the noble nature which thou hast 
given unto man, making us the master over things 



158 PRAYERS 

underneath our feet and above our head, and placing 
the elements in subjection to us all around. 

We thank thee for the triumph of truth over error, 
to us so slow, to thyself so sure. We bless thee for 
every word of truth which has been spoken the wide 
world through, for all of right which human con- 
sciences have perceived and made into institutions. 

We thank thee for that love which setteth the soli- 
tary in families at the beginning, and then reaches wide 
arms all around, and will not stay its hold till it joins 
all nations and kindreds and tongues and people into 
one great family of love. We bless thee for the noble 
men and women whose generous heart has lit the altar 
fire of philanthropy in many a dark and else benighted 
place. 

We thank thee for the unbidden faith which springs 
up in our hearts, impelling us to trust thee and love 
thee and keep every commandment of thine, and that 
while we know not what a day shall bring forth, we are 
sure of everlasting life, and while our own strength is 
so often weakness, we know that the almightiness of 
thy wisdom, thy power, thy justice, and thy love, is 
on every living creature's side, and thou wilt bless every 
child of thine infinite affection. Father, we thank thee 
for the silent progress of the true religion, that every- 
where throughout the world thou hast those that wor- 
ship thee, — 

" Even that in savage bosoms 
There are longings, yearnings, strivings 
For the good they comprehend not. 
And the feeble hands and helpless. 
Groping blindly in the darkness. 
Touch thy right hand in that darkness, 
And are lifted up and strengthened." 



PRAYERS 159 

Father, we bless thee for the discipline of our daily 
life, and pray that by our experience we may grow 
wiser and nobler-hearted^ that prosperity may teach us 
to be generous towards all, to be charitable towards 
such as we ought to help ; and when sadness and ad- 
versity come over us, may they still more soften our 
hearts, while they confirm and strengthen our will, and 
lift our souls upwards to an aspiration for nobler and 
nobler virtues than we have hitherto attained. In the 
midst of our sadness, when crosses are laid on us that 
are hard to bear, and the bitter cup of disappointment 
is offered to our lips and it may not pass away, oh, 
may our soul be so strong that with a valiant 
might we shall submit us to thee, and grow stronger 
and richer even by our sorrow and our loss, and come 
forth triumphant at last, with the crown of righteous- 
ness on our brows, and the certainty of acceptance with 
thee in our soul. Then, when thou hast completed 
thine earthly work with us, wilt thou take us to thy- 
self to be with thee for ever and ever, brightening 
and brightening towards the more perfect glory, as 
thou leadest us by thy spirit. So may thy kingdom 
come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XV 

thou Infinite One, who dwellest not only in temples 
made with hands, but art a perpetual presence, living 
and moving and having thy being in every star that 
flowers above and every flower that flames beneath, we 
flee unto thee, who art always with us, and pray that 
we may commune with thy spirit face to face for a 
moment, feeling thy presence with us, and pouring out 
our gratitude unto thee ; and amid all the noises of 
earth, may the still small voice of thy spirit come into 



160 PRAYERS 

our soul, wakening our noblest faculties to new life, 
and causing the wings of the spirit to grow out on 
our mortal flesh. O thou Infinite One, we lift our 
thoughts unto thee, our dependent souls constraining 
us unto thee, that we may rest us under the shadow 
of thy wings, and be warmed by thy love, and sheltered 
and blessed by the motherly tender mercy wherewith 
thou regardest all of thy children. We adore and 
worship thee, calling thee by every name of power, of 
wisdom, of beauty, and of love ; but we know that none 
of these can fully describe thee to ourselves, for thou 
transcendest our utmost thought of thee, even as the 
heavens transcend a single drop of dew which glitters 
in their many-colored light. 

We remember before thee the manifold works of 
thy hand, and thy providence which hedges us in on 
every side. We thank thee for the genial warmth 
which is spread abroad along the sky, we bless thee for 
the green grass growing for the cattle, and the new 
harvest of promise just springing from the sod, fore- 
telling bread for men in months to come. Father, 
we thank thee for the flowers, those later prophets of 
spring, which on all the New England hills now utter 
their fragrant foretelling of the harvest which one day 
shall hang from the boughs, and glitter and drop and 
enrich the ground. 

O Lord, we thank thee for the nation within whose 
borders the lines of our lot have been cast. We thank 
thee for our fathers, men of mighty faith, who came 
here and planted themselves in the wilderness, few in 
numbers and strangers in it, and yet not weak of heart, 
and lifting up valiant hands before thee. We thank 
thee for what truth they brought, what truth they 
learned, and all the noble heritage which is fallen to 
our hands. 



PRAYERS 161 

We bless thee for every good institution in the midst 
of us, for schools and churches, for the unbounded 
opportunity here in these Northern States to develop 
the freedom of our limbs, and enjoy the liberty of our 
souls, wherewith thou makest all men free. 

We remember before thee our daily lives, and we 
thank thee for the bread we eat, the garments we put 
on, and the houses which more loosely clothe us, shelter- 
ing from the summer's heat or the winter's cold. 

We bless thee for the dear ones who garment us 
about, sheltering us more tenderly and nearly. We 
bless thee for those who love us, and whom with answer- 
ing love, we love back again ; those under the sight 
of our eye, and lifting up their prayer with us, and 
those far severed from the touch of our hand or 
the hearing of our voice. We thank thee for these 
blessed relationships, which set the solitary in families, 
making twain one, and thence manifold, beautifying 
the world with all the tender ties which join lover and 
beloved, husband and wife, parent and child, and with 
kindred blood and kindred soul joining many children, 
grown or growing, into one great family of love. 

Father, we thank thee for the great ideas of our own 
nature, and the revelation and inspiration which thou 
makest therein ; for the grand knowledge of thyself, 
our Father and our Mother, full of infinite perfection, 
doing good to each greatest and each smallest thing, 
and making all things work together for the good of 
each. O Lord, we thank thee for the knowledge which 
comes from the inspiration of thy spirit working in 
the human soul, and human souls obedient thereunto 
working with thee. 

We remember our own daily lives before thee, and 

we mourn that, gifted with a nature so large, and sur- 
XII— 11 



162 PRAYERS 

rounded with opportunities so admirable, we have yet 
often stained our bodies with our soul's transgression, 
and that unclean and unholy sentiments have lodged 
within us, yea, nestled there and been cherished and 
brooded over by our consciousness. We lament that 
we have had within us feelings which we would not that 
others should bear towards us, and have done unright- 
eous deeds. We take shame to ourselves for these 
things, and we pray that we may gather suffering 
thence and sorrow of heart, till we learn to cast these 
evils behind us, and live nobler and more natural lives, 
inward of piety, and outward of goodness towards all. 

We remember our daily duties before thee, the hard 
toil which thou givest us in our manifold and various 
avocations, and we pray thee that there may be in us 
such a confidence in our nature, such earnest obedience 
to thee, we reverencing all thy qualities and keeping 
thy commands, that we shall serve thee every day, 
making all our life one great act of holiness unto thee. 
May our continuous industry be so squared by the 
Golden Rule that it shall nicely fit with the interests 
of all with whom we have to do, and so by our handi- 
craft all mankind shall be blessed. We remember the 
temptations that are before us, when passion from 
within is allied with opportunity from without, and 
that we have so often therein gone astray; and we 
pray thee that the spirit of religion may be so strong 
within us that it shall enable us to overcome evil and 
prove ourselves stronger from every trial. 

We remember the sorrows and the disappointments 
we must bear, and we pray that this same spirit of 
religion may lift us up when we are bowed down, and 
strengthen us when we are weak, and give joy of heart 
to our inner man when the mortal flesh weeps and our 



PRAYERS 163 

eyes run down with tears. Yea, may we then be con- 
scious of immortal life, and lifting up holy hearts, 
enjoy that kingdom of heaven which is not meat and 
drink, and here on earth, by the various steps of joy 
and sorrow, may we mount up to that high dwelling- 
place, where we taste those joys which the heart has 
not conceived of, but which thy spirit and our own 
spirit create for every earnest and noble and aspiring 
soul. 

O Lord, we remember before thee our country, and 
ivhile we thank thee for the noble fathers and mothers 
who here planted this national vine, and bless thee for 
the truth those men brought, and the justice which 
secures for us the liberty of our flesh and the freedom 
of our soul, — we remember also the wickedness in 
high places, in our Northern lands and in many a 
Southern State, which is throned over the necks of 
the people. We remember the millions of our brother- 
men whose chained hands cannot this day be lifted up 
to thee, whose minds are dark with the ignorance we 
have forced upon them, and whose souls are in bond- 
age because we have fettered their feet and manacled 
their hands. O Lord, we pray thee that the whole 
nation may suffer till the Church and State be ashamed 
of their wickedness, and the whole people rise in their 
majesty and cast out this iniquity from the midst of 
us, and righteousness cover the land as the waters cover 
the sea. And we pray thee that in our humble way 
we may be useful in these great and good works, that 
our daily lives may be a gospel unto men, and the 
brave words that we speak and the noble sentiments 
that we cherish may be a prophecy of better things 
to come, which shall ring in the ears of the nation 
till they tingle and its heart also be touched. So may 



164 PRAYERS 

thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as 
it is in heaven. 

XVI 

thou Spirit who art everywhere, and watchest over 
us in darkness and in light, we flee unto thee, and for 
a moment would mingle our spirits with thine, remem- 
bering our weakness, and also our strength, rejoicing 
gratefully in the good things thou hast given us, and 
lifting up manly aspirations towards thee, who every 
joint supplieth, and quickeneth our soul, and seeking 
consciously to attain to a greater excellence than we 
have yet achieved here on earth. We would spread 
out our lives before thee, remembering our trials, our 
transgressions, our joys, and our sorrows, and any 
little triumph which we may have gained; and from 
these things we would gather up the materials to light 
our sacrifice, that its flame may go up before thee, 
incense from the altars of earnest hearts. May the 
spirit of prayer guide us in our devotions, that we 
may be quickened by the dew of thine inspiration and 
warmed by the daylight of thy providence, so that we 
may bloom into beauty and bear fruit to perfection 
in our mortal life. 

We thank thee for thine infinite care and the provi- 
dence which thou exerciseth over every great and every 
little thing; for thine higher law which rules the 
ground underneath our feet, and whereby the most 
ancient heavens are fresh and strong. O Lord, thou 
hast numbered the hairs of our head, and not a spar- 
row falleth to the ground save by thine infinite provi- 
dence, blessing the hairs which thou hast numbered and 
caring for the sparrow in its fall. 

Our Father, we thank thee for the world thou hast 



PRAYERS 165 

placed us in. We bless thee for the heavens over our 
head, burning all night with such various fire, and all 
day pouring down their glad effulgence on the ground. 
We thank thee for the scarf of green beauty with 
which thou mantlest the shoulders of the temperate 
world, and for all the hopes that there are in this f ood- 
ful earth, and for the rich promise of the season about 
us on every side. 

We thank thee still more for the nature which thou 
hast given us, for these earthen houses of the flesh 
wherein we dwell, and for this atom of spirit, a particle 
from thine own flame of eternity which thou hast 
lodged in the clay. 

We thank thee for the large inheritance which has 
come down to us from other times. We bless thee 
that other men labored, and whilst thou rewarded them 
for their toil, that we also have entered into the fruit 
of their labors, and gather where we have not strewed, 
and eat where we toiled not. 

We thank thee for the noble institutions which other 
days have bequeathed unto us. We thank thee for 
those great and godly men, speaking in every tongue, 
inspired by thy spirit, whom thou raisedst up from 
age to age, bearing witness of the nobleness of man's 
nature, and the nearness of thy love towards all the 
sons and daughters of men, — their life a continual 
flower of piety on the earth, drawing men's eyes by 
its beauty, and stirring men's souls by the sweet fra- 
grance of its heavenly flame. 

Most chiefly would we thank thee for him who in an 
age of darkness came and brought such marvelous 
light to the eyes of men. We thank thee for the truths 
that he taught, and the glorious humanity that he lived, 
blessing thee that he was the truth from thee, that he 



166 PRAYERS 

showed us the life that is in thee, and himself traveled 
before us the way which leads to the loftiest achieve- 
ments. 

We thank thee for those whose great courage in 
times past broke the oppressor's rod and let the op- 
pressed go free. And we bless thee for the millions 
of common men, following the guidance of their lead- 
ers, faithful to their spirit, and so to thee, who went 
onward in this great human march, in whose bloody 
footsteps we gather the white flowers of peace, and 
lift up our thankful hands to thee. 

Father, we thank thee for the men and women of 
great steadfastness of soul in our own times not less, 
who bear faithful witness against iniquity, who light 
the torch of truth and pass it from hand to hand, and 
sow the world with seeds whence in due time the white 
flowers of peace shall also spring. We thank thee 
that thy spirit is not holden, but that thou pourest it 
out liberally on all who lift up earnest hearts unto thee. 
We thank thee for the great truths which are old, and 
the new truths also which are great, and for the light 
of justice, for the glories of philanthropy, which 
human eyes have for the first time in this age beheld. 
O Lord, we thank thee that the glories which kings 
and prophets waited for have come down to us, and 
thou hast revealed unto babes and sucklings those 
truths which other ages yearned for and found not. 

O thou who art Father and Mother to the civilized 
man and the savage, who with equal tenderness lookest 
down on thy sinner and thy saint, having no child of 
perdition in thy mighty human family, we remember 
before thee our several lives, thanking thee for the 
joys that gladden us, the work which our hands find 
to do, the joy of its conclusion, and the education of 
its process. 



PRAYERS 167 

We are conscious of our follies, our transgressions, 
our stumblings by the wayside, and our wanderings 
from the paths of pleasantness and peace. We know 
how often our hands have wrought iniquity, and our- 
selves have been mean and cowardly of heart, not dar- 
ing to do the right which our own souls told us of; 
and we pray thee that we may suffer from these things, 
till, greatly ashamed thereof, we turn off from them 
and live glorious and noble lives. 

We thank thee, O Father, for those who make music 
about our fireside, whose countenance is a benediction 
on our daily bread, fairer to us than the flowers of 
earth or the stars of heaven. We thank thee for those 
newly born into this world, bringing the fragrance 
of heaven in the infant's breath; and if we dare not 
thank thee when our dear ones are bom out of this 
world, and are clothed with immortality, yet we thank 
thee that the eyes of our faith can follow them still 
to that land where all tears are wiped from every eye, 
and the only change is from glory to glory. 

We thank thee for the joy and satisfaction which 
we have attained to in our knowledge of thee, that we 
are sure of thy perfection, and need not fear anything 
which man can do unto us. Yea, we thank thee that, 
through red seas of peril, and over sandy wastes of 
temptation where no water is, the pious soul still goes 
before us, a light in the darkness, a pillar of cloud by 
day, to guide us to the rock that is higher than we, 
and to place our feet in a large place, where there are 
fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore. 

O thou who art infinite in thy power, thy wisdom, 
and thy love, who art the God of the Christian, the 
heathen, and the Jew, blessing all mankind which thou 
hast made to inhabit the whole earth, — we thank thee 



168 PRAYERS 

for all thy blessings, and pray that, mindful of our 
nature and thy nearness to us, we may learn to live 
to the full height of the faculties which thou hast given 
us, cultivating them with such large and generous 
education that we shall know the truth and it shall 
make us free, that we may distinguish between these 
ever-living commandments of thine and the traditions 
of men, that we may know what is right and follow 
it day by day and continually, that we may enlarge 
still more the affections that are in us, and travel in 
our pilgrimage from those near at hand to those need- 
ing our help far off, and so do good to all mankind, 
and that there may be in us such religious trust that 
all our daily work shall be one great act of service 
and as sacramental as our prayer. Thus may we be 
strengthened in the inner man, able at all times to ac- 
quit us as good soldiers in the warfare of life, to run 
and not be weary, to walk and never faint, and to pass 
from glory to glory till we are transfigured at last 
into the perfect image of thy spirit. Then, when thou 
hast finished thy work with us on earth, when the clods 
of the valley are sweet to our weary frame, may our 
soul go home to thee, and so may we spend eternity 
in the progressive welfare which thou appointest for 
thy children. And here on earth may the gleams of 
that future glory come upon us in our mortal life, 
clearing up the difficult paths and strengthening our 
heart when it is weak within us. So may thy kingdom 
come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XVII 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who occupiest all space, who 
guidest all motion, thyself unchanged, and art the life 
of all that lives, we flee unto thee, in whom we also 



PRAYERS 169 

live and move and have our being, and would reverence 
thee with what is highest and holiest in our soul. We 
know that thou art not to be worshiped as though thou 
needest aught, or askedst the psalm of praise from our 
lips, or our heart's poor prayer. O Lord, the ground 
under our feet, and the seas which whelm it round, 
the air which holds them both, and the heavens spark- 
ling with many a fire, — these are a whisper of the 
psalm of praise which creation sends forth to thee, 
and we know that thou askest no homage of bended 
knee, nor head bowed down, nor heart uplifted unto 
thee. But in our feebleness and our darkness, depend- 
ent on thee for all things, we lift up our eyes unto 
thee ; as a little child to the father and mother who 
guide him by their hands, so do our eyes look up to 
thy countenance, O thou who art our Father and our 
Mother too, and bless thee for all thy gifts. We look 
to the infinity of thy perfection with awe-touched 
heart, and we adore the sublimity which we cannot 
comprehend. We bow down before thee, and would 
renew our sense of gratitude and quicken still more our 
certainty of trust, till we feel thee a presence close 
to our heart, and are so strong in the heavenly con- 
fidence that nothing earthly can disturb us or make us 
fear. 

Father, we thank thee for this beautiful day which 
thou hast given us, for the glory which walks over 
our heads through the sky, for the pleasing alteration 
of light and shade, and all the gorgeous beauty where- 
with thou clothest the summer in her strength, mak- 
ing her lovely to the eyes of men. Father, we thank 
thee that thou never failest to thy world, but sheddest 
dew on meadows newly mown and rainest down 
thine inspiration from the clouds of heaven on every 



170 PRAYERS 

little grass and every mighty tree. Father, we thank 
thee that thou feedest and carest for all thy creatures, 
the motes that people the sunbeams, and the sparrows 
which fall not to the ground but by thy providence, 
protecting with thy hand the wandering birds of sum- 
mer, and the wandering stars of heaven, holding them 
all in the golden leash of thy love, and blessing every- 
thing which thou hast made. 

O thou Infinite One, we thank thee for thy precious 
providence, which is new every morning and fresh every 
evening and at noonday never fails. thou whom no 
name can tell, whom all our thoughts cannot fully 
comprehend, we rejoice in all thy goodness; we thank 
thee that from seeming evil thou still educest good, 
and better thence again, and better still, in thine own 
infinite progression, leading forward and upward every 
creature which thou hast made. 

We thank thee for our body, this handful of dust so 
curiously and wonderfully framed together. We bless 
thee for this sparkle of thy fire that we call our soul, 
which enchants the dust into thoughtful human life, 
and blesses us with so rich a gift. We thank thee for 
the varied powers thou hast given us here on earth. 
We bless thee for the far-reaching mind, which puts 
all things underneath our feet, rides on the winds and 
the waters, and tames the lightning into useful service. 
We thank thee for the use and the beauty which our 
thoughtful minds create, the grass of use for humble 
needs, the bread of beauty for loftier and more aspir- 
ing powers. We thank thee for this conscience, 
whereby face to face we commune with thine ever- 
lasting justice. We thank thee for the strength of 
will which can overpower the weakness of mortal flesh, 
face danger and endure hardship, and in all things 
acquit us like men. 



PRAYERS 171 

O thou who art the King of Love, we thank thee for 
these genial affections which knit us to our kind. We 
bless thee for the love which sets the solitary in fam- 
ilies, which makes one of twain, and thence many more, 
born from love, and growing up to kindred love again. 
We thank thee for the kindly sentiment which brings 
to pass the sweet societies of friendship, of kinsfolk 
and acquaintance, the joy of neighborhoods, the wide 
companionship of nations ; and for that philanthropy, 
which, transcending the narrow bounds of individual 
life, of family, kinship, neighborhood, and nation, goes 
round the world, looking for the ignorant to teach 
them, for the needy to fill them with bread, and for 
the oppressed to set them free. 

O thou Infinite One, who hast poured out treasures 
more golden yet, we thank thee for this religious sense, 
whereby we know thee, and, amid a world of things 
that perish, lay fast hold on thyself, who alone art 
steadfast, without beginning of days or end of years, 
for ever and for ever still the same. We thank thee 
that amid all the darkness of time, amid joys that de- 
ceive us and pleasures that cheat, amid the transgres- 
sions we commit, we can still lift up our hands to thee, 
and draw near thee with our heart, and thou blessest 
us still with more than a father's or a mother's never- 
ending love. 

O Lord, we thank thee for these bodies, we bless thee 
for this overmastering soul, which only quits the flesh 
to dwell with thee in greater and more glorified mag- 
nificence for ever and for ever. We thank thee for 
those of past times or our own day who have brought 
to human consciousness the greatness of our nature, 
the nearness of thy presence, and the certainty of thy 
love. We bless thee for those whose words have 



172 PRAYERS 

taught, whose living breath still teaches us wiser de- 
sires, simpler manners, grander truths, and loftier 
hopes, and chiefliest of all for those whose lives reveal 
to us so much that is human that we clap our hands 
and call it divine. 

Our Father, we pray thee that we may use the bless- 
ings thou hast given us, and never once abuse them. 
We would keep our bodies enchanted still with hand- 
some life, wisely would we cultivate the intellect which 
thou hast throned therein, and we would so live with 
conscience active and will so strong that we shall fix 
our eye on the right, and, amid all the distress and 
trouble, the good report and the evil, of our mortal 
life, steer straightway there, and bate no j ot of human 
heart or hope. We pray thee that we may cultivate 
still more these kindly hearts of ours, and faithfully 
perform our duty to friend and acquaintance, to lover 
and beloved, to wife and child, to neighbor and nation, 
and to all mankind. May we feel our brotherhood 
to the whole human race, remembering that nought 
human is strange to our flesh but is kindred to our 
soul. Our Father, we pray thee that we may grow 
continually in true piety, bringing down everything 
which would unduly exalt itself, and lifting up what is 
lowly within us, till, though our outward man perish, 
yet our inward man shall be renewed day by day, and 
within us all shall be fair and beautiful to thee, and 
without us our daily lives useful, our whole conscious- 
ness blameless in thy sight. When new blessings are 
born to us in the body, when kindred souls are born 
out from the body to the kingdom of heaven, may we 
accept thy varying dispensation, which on the one hand 
gives and on the other takes away, and still trium- 
phantly exclaim. It is thy hand, O God ! Yea, so may 



PRAYERS 173 

we live on earth that our daily toil shall renew a right 
spirit within us, that the temptations of business shall 
open the eye of our conscience that we may see justice 
and conform our will thereto, and our heart grow 
warmer and wider every day, and our confidence in thee 
so firm and absolute that it cannot change and will not 
be afraid. Father, help us to know thee as thou art, to 
understand thee as thou revealest thyself in this world 
that is about us, as thou hast spoken through might- 
iest men in other days, and still more to read that 
older as that newest Scripture ever written on our soul, 
that we may know thee in thine infinity, perfect in 
thy completeness, and complete in thy perfections. 
And whilst we know thee and love thee, may we over- 
come every fear of chance or change, every fear of 
disaster and storm and fate. Thus may thy kingdom 
come, and so thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XVIII 

Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and 
everywhere, who dwellest not only in houses made with 
hands, but hast thy dwelling-place wherever a human 
heart lifts up a prayer to thee, we would flee unto 
thee, and, gathering up our spirits from the cares and 
the joys and the sorrows of life, would commune with 
thee for a moment, that so we may be made stronger 
for every duty and more beautiful in thy sight. IMay 
thy holy spirit rest upon us, and pray with us in our 
morning prayer, teaching us what things we should 
ask, and how to pray thee as we ought. 

O thou who art everywhere, and fillest all the world, 
we thank thee for the freshness and beauty of this 
summer's day. We thank thee for the fair broad world 
wherein thou castest the lines of our earthly lot, for 



174 PRAYERS 

the sky above us, burning all night with starry fire, 
for the splendor which gladdens the gates of morning 
and of evening, and the beauty which by day possesses 
the heavens with its serene presence, adorning the fig- 
ure of every cloud. We thank thee for the ground 
under our feet, for the green luxuriance that is spread 
on all the hills and fields, for the rich harvest now 
yielding to the mower's scythe, to be swept into his 
crowded barns ; and that other harvest, a wave-offering 
of bread for man, or which hangs abundant, growing 
or ripening, from many a tree all round the land. For 
these things we bless thee, remembering it is thou who 
fulfillest the wants of every living thing, opening thy 
hand and satisfying thy children with needed bread. 
We bless thee likewise for the beauty which unasked 
for springs up by the wayside, and broiders every 
human path, or which thou givest us the power to pro- 
duce from out the cold, hard ground. We thank thee 
for the lilies and the roses which grow obedient to the 
gardener's thoughtful call, beautifying the fields and 
adorning many a house ; and bless thee for thy loving- 
kindness which scatters wild roses along every rural 
path and about the margin of many a pond, and on 
the borders of every sluggish stream plants thy lilies, 
wherewith the enamored water, pausing in the beauty 
of its course, wantons, as it were, upon its handsome 
shores. O thou Infinite One, we thank thee that thou 
revealest thyself not only in books writ with human 
pens, but in all the stars above, in every blade of grass, 
in every fruit and flower which the gardener's thought- 
ful care produces from the ground, or in these, the 
roses and lilies which thy beneficent hand profusely 
scatters by many a pond and long-lingering stream. 
We remember before thee our own lives, and thank 



PRAYERS 175 

thee for these bodies so hopefully and wonderfully 
made, and these overmastering souls which enchant a 
handful of dust into living, thinking, and worshiping 
frames of matter, that are so animated with heavenly 
life. We bless thee for our daily work which feeds 
and clothes our bodies, and, though we ask it not, which 
instructs our understanding, and elevates our earnest 
conscience and heart and soul. 

We remember before thee those that are near and 
dear to us, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, 
whose very presence is a joy, and whose recollection 
is a blessing to our heart. O Lord, we remember be- 
fore thee those whose flesh the grave hides from our 
eyes, but who are still life of our life, soul of our soul, 
those who have ceased from their labors and have gone 
home to thy more intimate presence, rejoicing, and ad- 
vancing from glory to glory. 

We remember before thee the trials thou givest us, 
and the temptations, often too strong for us to bear, 
and we pray thee that we may rouse up every noblest 
faculty in us, and so live that though our outward 
man should perish, the inward man may be renewed 
day by day, advancing towards the measure of the 
stature of a perfect man. O Father who art in heaven, 
O Mother who art near us always, we pray thee that 
there may be such religious faithfulness in us that not 
only the prayer of our Sunday morning shall be ac- 
ceptable to thee, but all the work of our daily life be 
blameless and beautiful, holy as a sacrament, and a 
continual service unto thee. May there be such con- 
fidence in thee, such love of thee, and such fidelity to- 
wards thee, that we shall bring down every high thing 
which exalts itself, and make every member of our 
body and every faculty of our soul to serve thee in 



176 PRAYERS 

our joy, and serve thee in our toil, and even in our 
sorrow and our sighing to serve thee not the less. 

Our Father, who art of purer eyes than to behold 
iniquity, who blessest all of thy children, we remem- 
ber before thee the great country in which thou hast 
cast the lines of our lot. We thank thee for the 
broad land thou hast given us, the mighty seas which 
are tributary to our thought; we bless thee for the 
vast multitude of people, and the great riches which 
our hands have won from the soil under our feet, from 
the waters that are round us, from the air that is over 
our head, and the mines which are hid in the bosom of 
the ground. 

We remember before thee the days of our small 
things, and we thank thee for those Pilgrims who were 
moved with such greatness of piety that they refused 
to obey the wickedness of men. We thank thee that 
thou sustainedst them when they went from their 
own land, that thou wert with them in all their perils, 
and didst bring them out of deep waters and plantedst 
their feet here in a large place. We thank thee for 
the vine which here our fathers planted where they 
hewed the wilderness away; we bless thee that they 
tended it with their prayers, and watered it with their 
tears, and defended it also with their blood. We 
thank thee for those patriots who drew the sword in 
the day of extreme need, who put to flight the armies 
of the aliens, through Avhose wounds we are healed, 
and whose blows, smote by their right hand, have 
wrought for us our political redemption. Father, we 
thank thee for the women whose valiant eyes looked 
on and encouraged the hardier flesh of father, brother, 
husband, lover, or son. 

And now. Lord, we bless thee for the fair institu- 



PRAYERS 177 

tions which they founded here. We thank thee for 
what of freedom we enjoy in the State, for all of edu- 
cation which comes from wide-spread schools, for the 
instruction which the unbridled press furnishes for all. 
We thank thee for what of justice is made law, for all 
of right which has become the common custom of the 
people, for the happiness which has ensued to us all. 

But, Lord, with shame and weeping, we lament the 
sins which thy people have committed against thee ; 
that, with all the blessings of other days gathered in 
our arms, with all the strength of holy institutions 
and of great ideas enlarging our consciousness, we are 
still a people so proud and so wicked, who tread thy 
law underneath unholy feet. Father, we mourn that 
we have trodden the needy down to the ground, that 
we have broken the poor to fragments and ground 
them to the dust, and on the day of the nation's jubilee 
we mourn that the hands of millions of men are chained 
together, and their minds are fettered by ignorance. 
Yea, Lord, we take shame and confusion of face to 
ourselves that we suffer this monstrous sin to linger 
In the midst of us, making the nation's face gather 
blackness in Its walk on earth. We mourn that our 
rulers are base, and the prayer of the people has be- 
come an abomination before thee, because of our wick- 
edness and the oppression with which we have tortured 
the weakest of men. We will not ask thee to save us 
in our sins, to free us from the consequence of wrong, 
while we fold the evil in our mistaken arms, but we pray 
thee that we may be afflicted in our basket and store, 
that our great men may be vanity, and our governors 
a lie, till we repent of our wickedness and put away 
the evil from the midst of us. 

O thou Infinite One, who hast given us strength pro- 
XII— 12 



I 



178 PRAYERS 

portioned to our need, we pray that we may use the 
faculties thou hast given us to overcome the evil that 
lies before us in our path. May our minds devise the 
right way, our conscience point to us the justice which 
we should follow, and our hands work out our own re- 
demption, even as thou commandest in every bone of 
our body and every faculty of our soul. So may we 
serve our nation better even than our fathers, the 
patriots or the Pilgrims, being faithful to the light of 
our day and generation, and walking whither thou 
wouldst have us to go. So may light come forth, and 
beauty and holiness cover the whole land, and peace 
and joy and righteousness be the possession of us all. 
Thus may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on 
earth as it is In heaven. 

XIX 

Our Father, who art In heaven, and on earth, we 
thank thee that in houses made with hands, and every- 
where, thou revealest thyself to thy children, and we 
flee unto thee with our psalm of thanksgiving and our 
words of prayer, to bless thee for all that thou givest, 
and to quicken our souls in heavenly aspiration, that 
while thou drawest near unto us we may draw near 
unto thee, and in thee live and move and have our 
being. May the words of our mouths and the medita- 
tions of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, 
our Strength and our Redeemer. 

We thank thee for all the blessings thou givest us, 
for the ground beneath our feet, and the heavens over 
our head, for the sun which gently parts the morning 
clouds, and from his golden urn pours down the hand- 
some day all round our northern land, and for the 
million eyes of heaven which all night look down upon 



PRAYERS 179 

a slumbering world, full of thine own wisdom, and 
radiating thy love, which never slumbers and doth not 
sleep. We thank thee that thy spirit, which animates 
nature with its overflowing currents, fills also the heart 
and soul of man. 

We thank thee for all the good which thou doest to 
us, for thy loving-kindness and thy tender mercy, 
which are over all thy works. We thank thee that 
thou takest care of oxen, and hast thine own thought 
for every great and every little thing which thine hands 
have made. We bless thee that we can both lay us 
down and sleep in safety, and when we wake that we 
are still with thee. We thank thee for thine infinite 
knowledge and thy power, wherewith thou createdst 
the all of things, foreseeing the end before the be- 
ginning yet was, and making all things work together 
for the good of all and each. We thank thee that we 
know that thou boldest the universe like a violet plant 
in thine hand, warmest it into life with thy breath, 
and inspirest it with thine own beauty, and blessest it 
with thyself. We thank thee that thou watchest over 
the course of human affairs, and bringest good out 
of evil, light out of darkness, and continually leadest 
forward thy children, step by step, from the low state 
wherein thou wert pleased to create mankind, to higher 
and higher heights of nobleness, as thou developest 
thy children to youth, to manhood, yea, to the measure 
of the stature of a complete and perfect man. We 
thank thee that thou hast nowhere left thyself without 
a witness, but everywhere makest revelations of thyself, 
where day unto day uttereth speech of thee, and night 
unto night showeth knowledge; yea, where there is no 
other voice nor language, thou. Lord, speakest in thine 
infinite wisdom and thy boundless love. We thank thee 



180 PRAYERS 

for the presence of thy holy spirit everywhere, that 
thou persuasively knockest at every closed heart, and 
into open souls comest like the sweetness of morning, 
spreading there the delight of truth and piety, and 
loving-kindness and tender mercy too. 

We thank thee that while we are sure of thy pro- 
tecting care, thy causal providence, which foresees all 
things, we can bear the sorrows of this world, and do 
its duties, and endure its manifold and heavy cross. 
We thank thee that when distress comes upon us, and 
our mortal schemes vanish into thin air, we know there 
is something solid which we can lay hold of, and not 
be frustrated in our hopes. Yea, we thank thee that 
when death breaks asunder the slender thread of life 
whereon our family jewels are strung, and the precious 
stones of our affection fall from our arms or neck, we 
know thou takest them and elsewhere givest them a 
heavenly setting, wherein they shine before the light 
of thy presence as morning stars, brightening and 
brightening to more perfect glory, as they are trans- 
figured by thine own almighty power. 

We thank thee for all the truth which the stream of 
time has brought to us from many a land and every 
age. We thank thee for the noble examples of hu- 
man nature which thou hast raised up, that in times 
of darkness there are wise men, in times of doubt there 
are firm men, and in every peril there stand up heroes 
of the soul to teach us feebler men our duty, and to 
lead all of thy children to trust in thee. Father, we 
thank thee that the seed of righteousness is never lost, 
but through many a deluge is carried safe, to make the 
wilderness to bloom and blossom with beauty ever fra- 
grant and ever new, and the desert bear corn for men 
and sustain the souls of the feeble when they faint. 



PRAYERS 181 

We thank thee for that noblest ornament and fair- 
est revelation of the nature of man whom thou didst 
once send on the earth to seek and to save that which 
was lost. We thank thee that he withstood the sin 
and Iniquity of his time, that he was the friend of 
publicans and sinners, that he broke the yoke of the 
oppressor and let the oppressed go free. We thank 
thee that he respected not the position of men, but 
was a friend to all the friendless, and the blessing of 
those ready to perish fell on his head. Father, we 
thank thee that he lifted up that which was fallen 
down, and bound that which was bruised, and was a 
father of the fatherless, and the Saviour of us all. Yea, 
Lord, we thank thee for his temptations and his 
agonies, for his trials and his bloody cross, and for all 
his perils so manfully borne, and the crown of human 
homage and divine reverence which thou didst set on 
his head, defiled once by a crown of thorns. And while 
we thank thee for these things, O Lord, we pray that 
the same human nature may be active In our heart, and 
a like heroism bear fruit in our daily lives. 

Father, we thank thee for every good institution of 
the Church which has brought life and loving-kindness 
unto men. We thank thee for the great saints and 
martyrs whose names are household words in the 
world's mouth, and also for those unnumbered and un- 
named, who with common talents have done great 
service for mankind, whose holy life thou hast blessed 
for all the world. We remember these before thee, and 
thank thee for the prayers, and the toils, the tears, the 
blood, and the manly and womanly endeavor, whereby 
the wilderness has been made to blossom as the rose, 
and the great victories of humankind have been 
achieved for us. 



ISa PRAYERS 

O thou who art our Father, and our Mather not the 
less, we remember these things, and we pour out our 
hearts in psalm of gratitude and ascending prayer of 
thanksgiving unto thee. We remember our own lives, 
the lines of our lot cast in this pleasant land, and we 
pray thee that we may faithfully do every duty which 
the age demands of us. Inheriting so much from times 
past, quickened by the inspiration of great men, and, 
still more, feeling thee a presence not to be put by, 
ever near to our heart, — we pray thee that there may 
be such religiousness of soul within us that we shall 
make every day a Lord's day, and all our work a great 
sacrament of communion with thy spirit. We pray 
thee that we may lay aside every weight, and forsake 
the sins which do most easily beset us, and run the race 
that is before us, pressing forward to the glorious 
prize which thou appointest for thy children. So may 
thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it 
is in heaven. 

XX 

O thou Infinite Perfection, who art the soul of all 
things that are, we would lift up our spirits and gather 
up our hearts, and feel thy presence, and have thee as 
an abiding light in our tabernacle. We would thank 
thee for all the blessings thou givest us, and thy pre- 
cious providence whereby we live. We know that thou 
needest no prayer of ours to stir thee to do us good, 
but in the midst of things changing and passing away, 
our heart and our soul cry out for thee, the ever living 
and true God. In the moment of our adoration, while 
we worship thee by our prayer, may we so strengthen 
ourselves that we shall serve thee all our lives, by a 
daily work which is full of obedience to thee and trust 
in thy perfection. 



PRAYERS 183 

We thank thee for the world of matter whereon we 
live, wherewith our hands are occupied, and whereby 
our bodies are builded up and filled with food and fur- 
nished with all things needful to enjoy. We thank 
thee for the calmness of night, which folds thy children 
in her arms, and rockest them into peaceful sleep, and 
when we wake we thank thee that we are still with thee. 
We bless thee for the heavens over our head, arched 
with loveliness, and starred with beauty, speaking ever 
in the poetry of nature the psalm of life which the 
spheres chant before thee to every listening soul. 

We thank thee for this greater and nobler world of 
spirit wherein we live, whereof we are, whereby we are 
strengthened, upheld, and blessed. We thank thee for 
the wondrous powers which thou hast given to man, 
that thou hast created him for so great an estate, that 
thou hast enriched him with such noble faculties of 
mind and conscience and heart and soul, capable of 
such continual increase of growth and income of in- 
spiration from thyself. We thank thee for the wise 
mind, for the just conscience, for the loving heart, 
and the soul which knows thee as thou art, and enters 
into communion with thy spirit, rejoicing in its bless- 
ing from day to day. 

We thank thee for noble men whom thou hast raised 
up in all time, for the great minds who bring thy truth 
to human consciousness, and thereby make mankind 
free. We thank thee for good men who do justly, 
and love mercy, and walk humbly with thee, visiting 
the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and 
keeping themselves unspotted from the world, which 
they feed and bless with occasional charity and ever 
continuous toil and thought. O Lord, we thank thee 
for those who love thee with all their understanding 



184* PRAYERS 

and their heart, and, loving thee thus, love also their 
neighbors as themselves; who overtake those that wan- 
der from the way of truth, who lift up the fallen, who 
are eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, and strength 
and salvation to such as are ready to perish. 

We thank thee that while we are brothers and sis- 
ters to each other, thou art Father and Mother to us 
all, and when earthly parents forsake and let us fall, 
when our own kinsfolk and acquaintance turn from 
us, thou wilt hold us up and in no wise let us fall. 

We remember before thee our daily lives, the duties 
thou givest us to be done, and we pray thee that we 
may have manly and womanly strength to do whatso- 
ever our duty requires, and to bear any cross that is 
laid upon us, how hard and grievous soever to be borne. 
We remember before thee the joys thou givest us, and 
we pray thee that while our own heart is filled with 
gratitude to thee for the blessings which our hands 
have wrought, or have fallen as an inheritance to our 
lot, we may run over with loving-kindness and tender 
mercy to our fellow-men. 

O Lord, we remember the sorrows with which thou 
triest us, which make our eyes run down with tears, 
and we pray thee that there may be in us such serenity 
of trust in thy providence that every tear shall be 
changed to a far-prospecting glass, whereby distant 
glories shall be brought near, and things seemingly 
small shine out in their real grandeur before our eyes,, 
and ourselves be comforted even by the affliction thou 
givest us, and grow strong by what else would weaken 
heart and soul. 

We pray thee that there may be in us a pure and 
blameless piety, which, knowing thee in thine infinite 
perfection, loves thee with all our understanding and 



PRAYERS 185 

our heart and our soul; and so loving thee, may we 
keep every law which thou writest on our material 
bodies, or in our spiritual soul, and live blameless and 
beautiful in thy sight, doing the duties of time, yet 
conscious of eternity, and so in a little time fulfilling a 
great time, and journeying ever forward and upward, 
till we are transformed into that perfect image of 
thyself, when thy truth is our thought, thy justice 
is our will, and thy love is the law of our daily life, as 
we go from glory to glory. So lead us forward 
through the varying good and ill of this life, and, at 
last, when we have finished our course on earth, and 
the clods of the valley are sweet to our perishing flesh, 
then wilt thou clothe us with the garments of immor- 
tality, and take us to thyself, ever in an ascending 
march to go higher and higher in those glories which 
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man 
conceived of in its highest golden dream. So may thy 
kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is 
in heaven. 

XXI 

Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and 
everywhere, we know that thou rememberest us, for 
we stand for ever before thy throne, and thou needest 
not the psalm of our lips nor our heart's ascending 
prayer to stir thy love towards us, but sometimes in our 
weakness do we dream that thou needest to be en- 
treated, and so ask thee to draw nigh to us; but we 
know it is for us to draw near to thee, who art ever 
present with us, about us, and above us and within. 
O thou Perpetual Presence, we thank thee for thy lov- 
ing-kindness and tender mercy, in the consciousness of 
which we would spread out in our memory the recol- 



186 PRAYERS 

lection of our daily lives, the wrong deeds we do, the 
joys we delight in, the duties that are hard to be done, 
and the high hopes that kindle heaven within our heart ; 
and while we muse on these things for a moment, we 
would so adore and w'orship thee in our prayer that we 
may serve thee always in our daily life. 

Father, we thank thee for the material world which 
thou hast placed all around us, underneath, and over- 
head. We thank thee for the sun, which across the 
wintry land pours out the beauty of the golden day, 
checkering the year with exceeding loveliness. We 
thank thee for the night, visited with troops of stars, 
and for the moon which walks in brightness from the 
east to the west, gladdening the eyes of wakeful men. 
We thank thee for the wondrous use there is in this 
material world, which feeds and shelters with house 
and raiment our mortal flesh, which is kind with medi- 
cines to our various ailments, and furnishes manifold 
tools for our toil and thought. 

We thank thee for the greater world of spirit, 
whereof thou hast created us in thine own image and 
likeness, vested with immortality, having here a fore- 
taste of everlasting life. We thank thee for our body, 
so curiously and wonderfully made, and for the spirit, 
which far transcends this vast material world. We 
thank thee for the mind, which loves use and beauty 
and truth ; for this conscience which would know right, 
and the ovennastering will which would do it all our 
days. We bless thee for the affections, which join 
us to some particular bright star, or tie us to some 
pleasant nook of earth ; which ally us with the animals 
about us, and most tenderly do find their home in father 
and mother, in lover and beloved, husband and wife, 
parent and child, and all the sweet companionships 



PRAYERS 187 

which gladden our earthly loving heart. We bless thee 
for the feeling infinite, the religious soul which thou 
hast planted in us, of higher kinship than the mind, 
the conscience, or the earthly affections ; yea, we thank 
thee for this soul, which without searching can find out 
thee, and hold communion with thee at our own sweet 
will, receiving blessed inspiration from thy presence, 
which is not to be put by. 

We thank thee for the relation which thou hast es- 
tablished between that world of matter which is without 
us and this world of spirit which is within; and we 
thank thee that while material nature furnishes food 
and shelter, instruments and healing to our mortal flesh, 
it likewise furnishes far higher things to mind and 
conscience, and to heart and soul. Yea, we bless thee 
that thou hast made all things work together for good ; 
that while we are striving with prayer and toil for 
daily bread, thou givest us also the bread of life, and 
feedest us with spirit's food, and so nursest us upward 
till we grow to the measure of the stature of a com- 
plete and perfect man. O Lord, what is man that thou 
art mindful of him? Thou hast created him a little 
lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory 
and honor and immortality, and hast put all things un- 
derneath his feet. 

We remember our daily lives before thee, the wrong 
things which we have done, and the unholy thoughts 
and evil emotions which we have not only suffered in 
our hearts but cherished there. We pray thee that 
thou wilt chasten us for these things, and we may 
suffer and smart therefor till we turn from every 
wrong, and with new life efface the scars of ancient 
wickedness wherewith we have stained and deformed 
our consciousness. 



188 PRAYERS 

We remember before thee the special blessings thou 
hast given, and while we would not forget thy hand, 
which feedeth us for ever and for ever, we would let 
our hearts, when filled with gratitude to thee, run over 
with their loving-kindness and tender mercy to man- 
kind, till our hands also are filled with good deeds, 
whereby we hold communion with our brother-men. 

We remember the stern sorrows which thou givest us, 
the cup of bitterness ofttimes pressed to our lips, the 
trials that await us in our business and perplex our 
understanding; we remember the sorrows which stain 
our eyes with tears when thou changest the counte- 
nance of our dear ones, and lover and friends are put 
far from us, and our acquaintance into darkness. O 
Father in heaven, O Mother on earth and in heaven 
too, we thank thee that we know that it is unto bright- 
ness, and not darkness, that thou ferriest our acquaint- 
ance over, carrying our dear ones into thine own king- 
dom of heaven. We thank thee for the spirits of 
just men made perfect already, and for those whom, 
in infinite progression, thou leadest forw^ard from the 
stain of earthly sin to that purity and perfection which 
the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor our hu- 
man hearts but poorly, dimly felt. 

Father, we thank thee that while earthly things 
perish and pass away, and we know not what a day 
shall bring forth, we are sure of thine infinite power, 
wisdom, justice, and love, and when our mortal decays 
and passes down to the sides of the pit, and the clods of 
the valley are sweet to our perishing frame, we thank 
thee that we still feel thy presence as not to be put 
by, and the calm still voice of thy spirit pleads with 
us, teaching of duty and assuring us of its infinite re- 
ward. 



PRAYERS 189 

O Father in heaven, we will not ask thee to work a 
miracle and draw nigh to us, thou who art ever living 
in our life and moving in our motion, and yet trans- 
cending time and space. But we pray thee that there 
be such action of our noblest part that we shall think 
truth, that we shall know right and will it all our days, 
that we shall love things given us to love, and grow in 
our affection stronger and stronger to our brother 
men, closer and closer knit ; and may there be such ac- 
tion of our soul that we shall know thee as thou art, 
and live with a perpetual income of thy spirit to our- 
selves, even in our sleep thou giving to thy beloved, and 
we receiving from our Father and our Mother, whose 
warmth shall make us warm, whose life is our living. 
Day by day may we pass from the glory of a good 
beginning to the greater glory of a noble end, and 
when at last thou hast served thyself with our mortal 
bodies, may we lay them in the dust, whence these gar- 
ments of the soul were taken first, and clothed with 
immortality, fly upwards, onwards unto thee. So may 
thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it 
is in heaven. 

XXII 

O thou Infinite One, who art a perpetual presence 
above us, and about us, and within, we would draw 
near unto thee, who art not far from any one of us, 
and with a consciousness of thy presence would remem- 
ber before thee all the blessings thou hast given us, 
the duties which we are to do, the crosses which must 
be borne, the joys we delight in, and the sorrows which 
afflict us ; remembering these things, we would so wor- 
ship thee for a moment that we may serve thee all the 
days of our lives. Our Father who art in heaven. 



190 PRAYERS 

•whither shall we flee from thy presence, whither shall 
we go from thy spirit? If we take the wings of the 
morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 
even there shall thy hand lead us, and thy right hand 
shall hold us up. We thank thee for thy loving- 
kindness and thy tender mercy, which are over all thy 
ways, beneath which we can lay us down and sleep in 
safety, and when we awake we are still with thee. 

We thank thee for the noble nature thou hast given 
us, for its vast powers to know truth and beauty, to 
find out the eternal right, to love one another with the 
strength of our affections, and to know thee, who art 
our Father and our Mother, and to cleave unto thee 
with an absolute trust, which knows no turning nor 
falling away. 

O Lord, we remember before thee thine own pres- 
ence in the world of matter, and in the consciousness 
of our own soul. We thank thee that thou speakest in 
this Old Testament of the world of nature, and in this 
New Testament of man's spirit makest yet more glori- 
ous revelations of thyself; and while there proclaiming 
thy power, thy law, thy wisdom, here in our hearts thou 
tellest ever of thy justice and thy love, thine infinite 
perfection which thou art. We thank thee for the 
great revelations thou hast made through the human 
sense and human soul in times past. We bless thee for 
the great men and women whom thou hast gifted so 
liberally with genius that they have become great 
philosophers, poets, and teachers of morality to man- 
kind, in whose soul thine own image has been mirrored 
down and reflected back to men. We thank thee for the 
prophets and apostles who, in all lands, and in every 
age, through the inspiration thou didst normally put 
on them, have been a guiding and shining light unto 
their brothers. 



PRAYERS 191 

We thank thee that not only unto great men hast 
thou revealed thyself, but out of the mouth of babes 
and sucklings hast thou perfected thy praise, the little 
teaching the great, and the few instructing the many. 
We thank thee for the millions of common men and 
women, their names to mankind all unknown, who with 
great faithfulness of soul have looked upwards and 
found thee, and with the daily beauty of their lives 
have revealed thy loving-kindness and thy tender mercy 
to the world of men. 

Above all others, do we thank thee for that great 
and noble man who in days of darkness and extreme 
peril thou raisedst up, and through his genius didst 
inspire with so much of truth, and justice, and philan- 
thropy, and faith in thee. We thank thee for the 
words of truth which he spoke, for the sentiments of 
noble piety and philanthropy which came out, not only 
in his speech, but in the daily works of his handsome 
life; and we bless thee that his words and the memory 
of his life have come down to us to kindle our hope, 
to stir our aspirations, and to strengthen our faith in 
man. 

Father, we thank thee not only for all these things 
which are behind us, but that still to the human soul 
thou impartest thyself, giving truth to all who use their 
minds aright, revealing justice to every one, warming 
each faithful heart with love, and revealing thyself 
to whoso with honest purpose looks up and seeks after 
thee. We thank thee for all truth which we have learned 
of thee, for every emotion of pious gratitude and holy 
trust which has sprung up within our heart ; and if we 
have achieved any elevation of character and done any 
good deeds in our lives, we thank thee, who givest to 
us all in our nature so liberally, and demandest of 



192 PRAYERS 

us only the duties which our strength is equal to, and 
which raise us to greater and greater powers of 
strength by the doing thereof. 

We remember before thee our own daily lives, thank- 
ing thee for the reward which comes as the result of 
our toil. We bless thee for the friends near and dear, 
by whatsoever name they are called, still bone of our 
bone, and flesh of our flesh, or spirit of our soul. We 
thank thee that in our sorrows thou art an ever-present 
help, not far from us, but exceeding near, and the 
thought of thee not only confirms us for our duty, but 
refines us till we are able to bear the exceeding sorrows 
oft laid on us. We bless thee for the glorious hope 
which spreads out before us, for the consciousness of 
everlasting life which comes as the innermost fact of 
our inward soul. We thank thee that in a world where 
things deceive our expectations, we are sure of thee, 
and certain of thy loving-kindness and thy tender 
mercy, and the infinite heaven which spreads out be- 
fore us. 

We pray thee that there may be in us such knowl- 
edge of thee, such love and trust in thee, that all our 
days we shall serve thee with blameless and earnest 
work. May we do the duties thou givest to be done, 
and bear any crosses laid upon us, in such manly and 
womanly sort, that by toil and suffering we shall grow 
wiser and better every day. Help us to distinguish 
between the commandments of erring men and the 
everlasting commandments of thy law, which thy spirit 
writes on the world of matter and publishes in this 
world of spirit. Day by day may we grow wiser and 
juster, stronger in our righteous will, more loving in 
our affections, while our emotions towards thee be- 
come continually more and more beautiful, and blessed 
still the more. 



PRAYERS 193 

We remember thee before all men, our brothers 
everywhere, and pray thee that by our truth and our 
lives we may do something to lift the cloud of dark- 
ness which blinds men's eyes, and to strike off the fetters 
which chain the mind or which manacle the limbs. So 
by our life may we serve thee, who art not to be wor- 
shiped as though thou neededst anything, and here on 
earth may we pass from glory to glory, till, when thou 
hast finished thy work with us below, thou layest our 
bodies in the dust, and clothest us with immortality, 
and, arrayed in that wedding garment, takest us home 
to thyself, to pass from the glory of the earthly to 
the greater glory of the heavenly, and enter into those 
joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the 
heart of man can fully comprehend. So may thy 
kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is 
in heaven. 

XXIII 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who possessest the darkness 
of the night, and fillest the chambers of the day with 
thy glorious presence, we would draw near unto thee, 
and worship thee with the homage of grateful hearts, 
thanking thee for the favors for which thou askest 
not our gratitude, and communing with thy spirit face 
to face. In our darkness and our feebleness we turn 
ourselves unto thee, seeking to feel thee nearer and 
more intimately in our souls, and so to worship in our 
morning prayer that thy sunlight shall shine upon our 
heads, and in the light thereof we shall journey all our 
days, serving thee with a perfect service and a manly 
trust. 

O thou who givest us all things so richly to enjoy, 
we thank thee for the world wherein thou hast cast 
XII— 13 



194 PRAYERS 

the lines of our lot. We bless thee for the night, 
where the moon walks in beauty, and star unto star 
proclaims thy loving-kindness and thy tender mercy, 
wherewith thou fillest up the world of space, and em- 
bracest not less the all of time. We thank thee for the 
handsome day, which this great star pours down from 
heaven, bringing the touch of spring to our cold 
northern lands, and waking the newly-ventured birds 
to their earliest vernal song. Father, we thank thee 
for all the beauty of the year, for the wondrous world 
which is under our feet, and above our heads, and 
round us on every side. 

We thank thee for these bodies of ours, builded up 
from material things, so curiously and so wonderfully 
made; we thank thee for the power which thou givest 
them, and all their various weapons for toil and for 
defense. We thank thee for the noble soul thou hast 
enthroned herein, this divine spark, enchanting with 
its life this handful of material dust. We thank thee 
that thou hast created us in thine own image, and hast 
given us the power over these material things, over 
the earth under our feet, and the elements that are 
above us and about us on every hand. 

We thank thee for the large mind, rejoicing in use, 
in beauty, and in science not the less. We thank thee 
for the power thou givest us from this material world 
to build up our bodies, strong and handsome temples, 
wherein thy spirit dwells in the human form, incarna- 
ting itself in so many millions and millions of thy 
daughters and thy sons. We thank thee for these 
senses, through which the soul looks out upon the 
world, and at these various windows takes knowledge 
in, and learns so much of thy works, and has com- 
munion with thine infinite joy in the world of matter 
which thou hast made. 



PRAYERS 195 

We thank thee for this conscience, with its power to 
know right, and its will to do right, and we bless 
thee that only thine own unchanging higher law of 
right can satisfy it, yearning for the first good, first 
perfect, and first fair. We thank thee that through 
this faculty we hold communion with thine everlast- 
ing righteousness, and can live by thy commandment, 
which is exceeding broad, and hath neither variable- 
ness nor the shadow of a turn. 

We thank thee for these affections, whereby we love 
those about us, and knit many tender ties which join 
us each to each, and all to one another. We thank 
thee for the love which joins those that are of the 
same nation or community, for the kindred blood which 
throbs in mutual hearts. We bless thee for the af- 
fection which makes the lover and his beloved to re- 
joice together, giving welfare to the bridegroom and 
the bride, to wife and husband. We thank thee for all 
the sweet felicities which come from the relation of 
friend to friend, and parent to child, for the many 
joys which cluster round our heart, and shine like 
morning light within the humblest or the proudest 
home. 

We thank thee that in addition to all these things 
thou givest us power to know thee, to trust thee, and 
to love thee, with a faith that knows no change, save 
from glory to glory, as it brightens into the perfect 
day of piety and its serenest joy. We thank thee 
that amidst a world of things which are changing, we 
are sure of thine infinite loving-kindness and thy ten- 
der mercy, and even in darkness we can trust thee, 
knowing that thy fatherly and motherly arm is about 
us, leading us from strength to strength, ready to 
uphold us when we totter, and to lift us up when we 



196 PRAYERS 

fall down. O thou Infinite One, we know no words 
to tell thee the deep emotions of our heart, the joys 
of our piety, and the holy trust we place in thee ; and 
thou needest no words, nor askest thou the prayer or 
psalm of thanksgiving from our heart, for thou art 
behind us and before, and above us and below, and 
about us and within and understandest every thought 
before our words express it in the ear. 

We remember before thee the duties thou givest us 
to do, and we pray thee that with earnest faithfulness 
we may do them all. May we bear any cross thou 
layest on us which must be borne, with reverent pa- 
tience, growing stronger from every affliction where- 
with thou triest us. When those near and dear are 
severed from our side, and the shadow of death falls 
on the empty place of our friend, we would remember 
that other world, where all tears are wiped from every 
eye, and thy children pass from the greater glory to 
the greatest, as they are led in infinite progression by 
thy hand. 

We remember the joys thou givest us, and while 
we taste them, we pray that our hearts may be filled 
with bounty towards all, and we may do good accord- 
ing to the measure of the strength which thou givest 
us. 

We remember our daily lives, and pray thee that 
by bearing what must be borne, and doing what thou 
givest us to do, we may build ourselves up to higher 
and higher heights of human excellence. May we 
grow wiser and more just, be filled with more loving- 
kindness to our brother men, and have a heartier and 
a holier love and trust in thee. May no success in 
this world's affairs ever harden our heart, but make 
us more noble and more generous, and may the world's 



PRAYERS 197 

sorrow and sickness and grief and disappointment and 
loss only rouse up the better soul that is in us, till we 
triumph over affliction, and have gained the vic- 
tory over death. Thus in our souls may there be such 
a bud of piety as shall open and bloom out into the 
fragrant flower of morality in our daily lives, and while 
it thus blossoms broad in use, may it bear seed within 
itself which shall last for ever and for ever. So finish 
thou thy work with us here below, and when it is done 
and ended, wilt thou take us to thyself, to be with 
thee for ever, and so to be transfigured into higher 
and higher likenesses of thy spirit, and pass from glory 
to glory for ever and ever. So may thy kingdom 
come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XXIV 

O thou Infinite One, we flee unto thee, and for a 
moment would be penetrated with the thought of thy 
presence, and so worship thee in the uplifting of our 
hearts that we may serve thee with our hands all the 
days of our mortal lives. 

We thank thee for thy loving-kindness and thy ten- 
der mercy, which are new every morning and fresh 
every evening, and which fail not at noonday. We 
thank thee for the world that is about us, and above 
us, and beneath us, full of thy presence in every star 
of heaven and every flower of earth. We bless thee 
for the other world which ourselves are, whereto this 
sphere of matter is but outward resting-place and en- 
vironment, and we thank thee that our souls are like- 
wise the temple of thy spirit, and thou it is who givest 
us life and breath and all things richly to enjoy. We 
thank thee that thou hast created us from perfect love. 



198 PRAYERS 

and watchest over us with such causal providence that 
thou makest all things work together for good, and wilt 
lose no child of perdition from thy mighty human flock, 
but wilt lead thy children by the hand, and those who 
cannot walk thou wilt bear in thine arms, and bring them 
all at last to never-ending bliss. O thou who art per- 
fect love, we thank thee for thyself, and, sure of thine 
infinite loving-kindness and thy tender mercy, we know 
that we cannot fail, and having thee, all else needful 
are we sure of beside. 

We thank thee for the glorious nature which thou 
hast given us, that thou hast blessed us with such large 
faculties, to know what is useful and beautiful and 
true, to understand what is just and right before thine 
eyes ; and with this affection whereby we love each 
other, and are joined by manifold tender ties to those 
who are dear to us, however far remote in time and 
space. We thank thee for this great and overmaster- 
ing power whereby we know thee and commune with 
thee, thy spirit inspiring our spirit, and thy providence 
upholding us when we totter, and uplifting us when we 
fall. Father, we thank thee for all these things, and 
our words know not how to praise thee as our hearts 
so gladly would, but we know that thou needest no 
words from our heart, no psalm from our lips, for 
thou understandest us, knowing the words of our mouth 
before they are conceived in our heart. 

We thank thee for all manner of blessings which 
thou givest us. We bless thee for the things needful 
to the body, for our health and our strength, our 
bread by day, our nightly sleep, and the work which 
our hands find to do, whereby our bodies are clothed 
with raiment and our mouths are satisfied with bread. 
We thank thee for the Instruction which comes to mind 



PRAYERS 199 

and to conscience from our daily toil. We bless thee 
for those who are near to our heart, whether by our 
side or far removed, or separated even by the gates 
of death. We thank thee for the ascended spirits that 
were once with us on earth, lifting their eyes upon 
the sun, taking sweet counsel with us, and walking to 
thine house in company. We bless thee for all good 
and noble men and women, who from time to time 
come up in thy providence, to teach nations the way 
in which they should walk, and to call many from 
wickedness to the ways of justice, which lead to such 
blessedness on earth and beyond the world. We thank 
thee for ages past, for the childhood of mankind, and 
for any words of simplicity and truth which have come 
down to us from ancient days. We thank thee for 
the primal virtues which shine aloft as stars, and not 
less for the charities which heal and soothe and bless, 
and are scattered at man's living feet like flowers. We 
bless thee for the great truths which have come down 
to us on their sounding way through the ages, en- 
couraging and strengthening men. We thank thee 
for poets and prophets and mighty men of thought 
and of piety, who spoke as they were moved by thine 
all-awakening spirit, and brought truth to mankind; 
and we thank thee that in our own day, not less, thy 
spirit still works with the children of men, O thou, 
who art the head, and dost every joint supply, and 
art always present in the world of matter and the 
world of man. 

We thank thee for all these things, and we pray thee 
that we may strengthen ourselves mightily with thy 
spirit in our inner man. May we turn off our eyes from 
loving evil things, and withhold our hand from every 
unclean and ungodly work. May we build ourselves 



200 PRAYERS 

up to the measure of a perfect man, growing con- 
tinually to a higher image and likeness whereafter thou 
hast created us. May there be in us such love of 
thee, such faith in thee, and such obedience towards 
thee, that we shall keep every law thou hast written 
on our bodies or in our souls. Thus may we learn 
thy truth, and may it set us free alike from the dark- 
ness of old times and the error of our own days. May 
we learn what is right and do thy will, with all the 
strength that is in us, and while we ask thee to love us, 
may we love our brothers as we love ourselves, and grow 
constantly in the practice of every religious duty, and 
the doing of every manly work. Thus may thy king- 
dom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in 
heaven. 

XXV 

O thou who art everywhere, we would feel thy 
presence at our heart, and lift up our spirit unto thee, 
seeking to hold communion with thee, and be strength- 
ened for duties, for sorrows, and for joys. For a 
moment we would remember in thy presence the lives 
that we lead, the works thou givest us to do, our short- 
comings, or any success that is in us ; and while we 
muse on these things may the fire of devotion bum 
within our heart and so*stir us that from our moment 
of worship we may learn to serve thee all the days of 
our lives. 

O thou, who art our Father and our Mother, we 
thank thee for thy loving-kindness and thy tender 
mercy, which are over all thy works. We thank thee 
that thou causest thy sun to shine on the evil and on 
the good, and sendest thy rain on the just and on the 
unjust. We bless thee that with fatherly providence. 



PRAYERS 201 

with motherly love, thou carest for the enlightened 
people of the earth, and not less for those whom savage 
ignorance hath held blinded so long. We thank thee 
that thou lovest thy saint, and also every sinner, who 
is also a child of thine, and wilt suffer no son of per- 
dition in thy great family, whom thou blessest with 
thyself. 

We thank thee for the special providence which is 
over everything which thou hast created, and wherein 
thou residest with all thine infinite perfections. We bless 
thee for the rain which to-day thou sheddest out of 
the sweet heavens, to warm the long-chilled bosom of 
the ground, to swell the buds on every tree, and to 
awaken the flowers of prophecy on all our northern 
hills and in our valleys, which are full of the promise 
of spring. We bless thee that, while thou givest us 
the earth under our feet and the heavens above our 
head, both in that which is beneath, and that which 
is above, and not less, O Lord, in that which is within 
us, thou thyself residest for ever, and manifestest thy- 
self to all the sons and daughters of men. We thank 
thee that in the midst of human darkness thou art an 
ever-glorious light, shining for ever in thy beauty. 
We thank thee that out of seeming evil thou still educ- 
est good, and better thence again, in thine own infinite 
progression, and so leadest thy children ever upwards, 
and forward forever. We thank thee that even the 
wrath of man is made to serve thee, and the remainder 
of wrath thou dost restrain, making all things work 
together at last for good. We thank thee that thou 
carest for us all, that in our day of joy we know it 
is thou who fillest our cup, by giving us the faculties 
which make it run over at the brim. We thank thee 
that thou art with us in our days of hardship and of 



W2 PRAYERS 

calamity, that when our own heart cries out against 
us, thou art greater than our heart, and, understand- 
ing all things, blessest us in secret ways ; and when we 
are cast down, and go stooping and feeble, with 
hungering eyes and a failing heart, that thou still art 
with us, and leadest us from strength to strength, and 
blessest us continually. 

We remember before thee the daily works wherein 
we are engaged, the perplexities of our business, abroad 
or at home, and we pray that we may have such 
strength of faithfulness to thee that the dark shall 
appear light to us, and the crooked shall become 
straight, and the way of duty so plain before our face 
that we cannot err therein. 

We remember the sorrows with which we are tried, 
the grievous disappointments that are laid upon us ; 
yea, we remember that thou takest from us our lover 
and acquaintance those with whom we took sweet coun- 
sel, and walked to thy house in company. We remem- 
ber before thee their immortality and our own, and we 
thank thee for the kingdom of heaven which arches 
over us, and sheds down its sweet influence from on 
high to encourage and to draw us up. And in days of 
sorrow we pray thee that we may have a quickening 
sense of this spiritual world whereto our faces are set, 
which is the appointed end of our earthly pilgrimage. 

Father, we remember our own souls before thee ; we 
know how often we have been forgetful of the duty 
which thou demanded of us, that we have often cher- 
ished unworthy feelings, and have not felt that love 
to our brother men which we should have felt, or which 
we have asked of thee. Yea, we remember that we have 
stained our hands by doing wrong things, and defiled 
the integrity of our own consciousness, and we pray 



PRAYERS 203 

thee that we may smart for every offense which we 
commit against thee, till, greatly ashamed of our folly 
and our meanness, we pass off from the unholy ways 
which are evil and lead to evil, and turn to those which 
are pleasantness and lead to eternal blessedness beyond 
the grave. Father, we thank thee for any suffering 
which comes upon us for wrong doings, knowing that 
thereby thou recallest us from the evil of our ways, and 
would save our souls from suffering yet worse. 

And we pray thee that this religious faculty may be 
so strongly active within us that we shall never fear 
thee, but a perfect love may cast out fear, and we 
know thee as thou art in thine infinite perfection, the 
Father and Mother of our soul in our every hour of 
need, which is our every hour of life; and may we 
have such love for thee, such faith towards thee, and 
live such a life in thee, that within us all shall be blame- 
less and beautiful, every faculty performing its several 
and appointed work, and all our outward lives shall 
be as harmonious as the stars in their courses, and full 
of continual use to our brother men. 

O thou who needest not to be entreated, we do not 
ask of thee new talents, for thou hast given what thou 
sawest fit ; nor do we entreat thee to do for us what thou 
hast given us power to do ; but, conscious of thy pres- 
ence, feeling the great gifts which thou hast bestowed 
upon us, and the perpetual income of thy spirit, we 
would use every faculty which thou hast given for its 
appropriate work, and so pass from childhood to man- 
hood, from glory to glory, till thou, finishing thy work 
with us here, shall take us to thyself, to pass from the 
greater glory to the greatest, by a continual trans- 
figuration of ourselves to thine image and thy likeness. 
So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on 
earth as it is in heaven. 



204 PRAYERS 



XXVI 



O thou who art everywhere, and needest not to be 
entreated, nor askest the bending of our knees, nor 
the prayer of our hps, nor our heart's psalm unto thee, 
we would draw near to thee for a moment, who art 
always near unto us. We would remember the bless- 
ings thou givest us, the duties thou demandest, the 
sorrows we are tried withal, or the offenses which we 
commit; and while we muse on these things, may the 
fire of gratitude and devotion be kindled on our altar, 
and our souls flame up towards thee, like incense from 
the altars of the just. From the moment of our com- 
munion with thee may we gather such strength that we 
shall worship thee always by a constant service from 
day to day. 

Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and 
everywhere, we thank thee for the world of matter un- 
der our feet, and over our head, and about us on every 
side. We thank thee for the night which hung the 
curtains of darkness about us, whereunder we could 
lay us down and sleep in safety, and that when we 
awoke we were still with thee. We thank thee for the 
moon which walked in beauty, and checkered the dark- 
ness with her comely light, and we bless thee for the sun 
which from his golden urn pours day across the world, 
warming and blessing everything with his sweet an- 
gelic touch. We thank thee, O Lord, for the bread we 
eat, for the garments we put on, for the houses which 
hold us, for the sleep which all night slides into our 
bones, bringing strength to the weary, and health to 
the sick ; and we bless thee for the day full of toil and 
opportunities for manly endeavor. 

We thank thee for the vast gifts which thou hast 



PRAYERS 205 

bestowed upon us, for these bodies so curiously and 
wonderfully made, as a temple for a spirit more won- 
drous and far more curiously made to dwell therein 
awhile, enchanting the dust into wise and human life. 
We thank thee for the ever-questioning mind, which 
hungers for use and truth and beauty, wherewith thou 
feedest us from age to age. We bless thee for this 
large conscience, which seeks for justice, wherewith 
thou dost enlighten our eyes and quicken what is inner- 
most within us. We thank thee for these self-denying 
affections, which reach out unto friends and kinsfolk, 
unto lover and beloved, parent and child, to country- 
men, yea, which spread out their arms to those that are 
needy everywhere. We thank thee for this religious 
faculty, which through the darkness looks up to thee 
and is filled with thy light, and we bless thee that in 
our hour of sorrow it brings to us exceeding tranquil- 
lity and hope and strength. We thank thee for the 
dear and tender joys which are born in our innermost 
of consciousness, which dwell there and fill the whole 
temple of our inner life with that presence which can- 
not be put by, which is a blessing to us by darkness 
and by day. We thank thee. Father in heaven, for 
all the good which has come from these great talents 
thou hast blessed us withal. We thank thee that in 
every age and every land thou givest open vision of 
thyself to thy children, and in the things that are seen 
mirrorest thine own image, O thou whom the mortal 
eye cannot see, but whom our heart enfolds within it- 
self, which is blessed by thy touch. We thank thee 
for great philosophers and prophets and poets, mighty 
men and women, whom thou hast blessed with large 
genius, who in many an age have gathered truth and 
justice, and taught love, and lived blameless piety; we 



206 PRAYERS 

thank thee for the revelations of manhood they have 
made to us, and the revelations of thine own spirit 
which through them have shone upon our heart. And 
for the greatest of them all, as we fondly dream, we 
thank thee, — for him who taught so much of truth, 
and lived so much of piety in his soul, and blameless 
benevolence in his outward life; we bless thee for his 
words of soberness, for his life of sacrifice and of 
duty, and all the gladness and j oy which therefrom has 
come to the sons and daughters of men. We thank 
thee not less for the millions of unremembered souls 
of men and women, who in their common callings of 
earth were faithful to the light which shone upon them, 
howsoever dim ; and we bless thee that by their stripes 
we are healed, and we also have entered into their 
labors, and rejoice in the heritage which their toil has 
won and bequeathed to us. 

Remembering all these things, we would pour out 
our psalm of gratitude to thee, kindling a reverence 
and love within our heart. We remember before thee 
the duties thou givest us to do, and, howsoever hard, 
pray thee that we may stir ourselves to be equal to our 
task. We would not forget the sorrows that are laid 
upon us, the disappointments, the bereavements, and 
afflictions, which the mortal eye of man beholds, and 
those dearer and worser which only thy sight sees in 
our heart, knowing its own bitterness ; and we pray 
thee that we may strengthen ourselves mightily for 
these things, and be made wiser and better within by 
the sorrows which we endure, which lie patent to the 
world, or are hid in the recesses of our secret soul. 

Of earthly things we know not how to pray thee as 
we ought, seeing as through a glass darkly, and not 
knowing whether poverty or riches, whether disaster 



PRAYERS 207 

or triumph, shall serve thy purpose best and make us 
noble men. But whatsoever of these things we have, 
whether thou glldest our pathway with the sun of se- 
reneness, or thunderest before our face, holding the 
blackness of darkness over us, yet give us the noble 
mind which loves the truth, the conscience which though 
it trembles as It lowly lies looks ever to the right, the 
affection which makes us spend and be spent for the 
good of others, — give us these things, and crown these 
virtues with sweet lovIng-klndness and faith In thee 
which need not be ashamed. 

O thou who art our Father and our Mother, may 
we know thee as thou art, as thou revealest thyself In 
the clear depths of our soul, and knowing thee, may 
we love thee with all our understanding and our heart, 
with our strength and our soul ; and making it all blame- 
less In our Inner man, may our outward life be useful 
also, full of beauty, and welcome In thy sight. So 
here on earth may we have a foretaste of thine heaven, 
and fly upwards towards thee, transfiguring ourselves 
by constant growth Into thine Image, till, finishing thy 
work with us on earth, thou layest our bodies In the 
grave, and to thine own home takest our spirits, to be 
with thee for ever and for ever. So may thy kingdom 
come, and thy will be done on earth as it Is In heaven, 
for thine Is the kingdom and the power and the glory 
for ever and ever. 

XXVII 

O thou who art present everywhere, we know that we 
iieed not ask thee to remember us, for thou hast us In 
thy holy care and keeping by day and by darkness, 
and art the presence at our fireside and about our 
path, watching over our rising up and our lying down, 



208 PRAYERS 

and acquainted with all our ways. In our weakness we 
flee unto thee, seeking to draw near thee, to know thee 
as thou art, and worship thee with what is highest and 
best within our soul. Conscious of thy presence 
about us and within, and mindful of thine eye which is 
ever upon us, we would remember the things which 
make us glad, or fill us with sadness; we would think 
over the good deeds which beautify our soul, and the 
ill things which are the deformity of our spirit ; and 
while we muse on these things, may the fire of devotion 
so burn in our heart that from the momentary wor- 
ship of our prayer we may learn to serve thee in our 
daily life through all our years. May the meditation 
of our heart bring us nearer unto thee, and the words 
of our mouth carry us up and on in the great journe}" 
of our mortal life. 

Father, we thank thee for this material world above 
"US, and about us, and underneath, wherein thou hast 
cast the lines of our earthly lot in exceeding pleasant 
places. We thank thee for the stars which all night 
in their serene beauty speak of thee, where there is 
no voice nor language, yet the speech of whose silence 
is felt by longing, hungering, and impatient souls. 
We thank thee for the sun, which pours out the golden 
day to beautify the sky, and to bring new growth of 
plants, and life of beast and bird, and many a creeping 
thing upon the ground. We thank thee for the pres- 
ence of spring with us, for this angel of growth, who 
weeks ago put the green oracle of the prophetic grass 
by every watercourse, rippling its psalm of life before 
the sight of men, and who now has cast his handsome 
garment on our plains, and whose breath swells the 
buds in many a vale and on many a hill, and draws the 
birds with their sweet music once more to our northern 



PRAYERS 209 

land. We thank thee for the seed which the hopeful 
farmer casts already into the genial furrows of the 
ground, looking to thee, who art the God of seed-time, 
for the harvest's appointed weeks. 

We thank thee for the human world which ourselves 
are ; we bless thee for the large nature with which thou 
hast endowed us, giving us the victory over the ground 
and the air, making every element to serve us, and 
the great sun by day to measure out our time, and 
distant stars by night to keep watch over our place, 
letting us know where 'tis we stand upon thy whirling, 
many-peopled globe. We thank thee for the large 
measure of gifts, the many talents wherewith thou en- 
richest this soul of man, which thou createdst nobler 
than the beasts that perish, and giftedst with such 
power immense, and such immortal hope. 

We thank thee for the joys of our life, our daily 
bread which imports strength into our bodies, the 
nightly sleep which brings tranquillity, recruiting us 
from toil past, and strengthening us for duties that 
spread out before. 

We thank thee for the mortal friends that are around 
us, for the dear ones who are bone of our bone or 
spirit of our spirit, whom we put our arms about and 
fold to our heart, a gladsome sacrament to our bosom, 
a serene blessedness to our earthly mortal soul. We 
remember the new ties which join us to the world, little 
Messiahs bom into human arms, and we thank thee 
for the tender ties newly knit, which join the lover and 
his beloved, the bridegroom and the bride, and all those 
sweet felicities wherefor the heart, marrying itself to 
another, before thee pours out its natural psalm of 
grateful joy. We thank thee for these dear affec- 
tions, whereby the earth blossoms like a rose, and 
XII— 14 



210 PRAYERS 

far-reaching philanthropies go out to bless the distant 
world, counting mankind our kith and kin. We bless 
thee for this deep religious faculty which thou hast 
given us, which through the darkness of earth looks 
upward to thine exceeding light, the star whose sparkle 
never dims, but shines through every night adown upon 
the human soul. 

We thank thee for the duties thou givest us to do, 
our general toil by fire-side and street-side, on land 
or sea, or wheresoever thou sendest us to run for the 
prize of thine own high calling. Yea, we bless thee 
for trials which are not too severe for us, and for the 
burdens which thou layest on our manly or womanly 
shoulders, that for others' sake and for our own we 
may bear them nobly and well. 

O Lord, in the light of thy countenance, how many 
wrong things spring up to our consciousness, and we 
must needs stain our prayer with some tear of penitence 
for an error committed, an evil deed, or some unholy 
emotion which we have kept within our soul. We will 
not ask thee to forgive us and remove from us the con- 
sequence of wrong ; we know that so doing thou wouldst 
rob us of our right ; — but we pray thee that we may 
learn to forgive ourselves, and with new resolution dry 
up every tear of penitence, and fill those footsteps 
which we have made in ancient error with new and 
manly, womanly life, bearing us farther forward in our 
human march. 

We remember before thee the sorrows with which 
thou triest us, how often we stoop us at the bitter 
waters and fill our mouths with sadness, and if we 
dare not thank thee for these things, if we know not 
how to pray thee about them as we ought, we yet thank 
thee that we are sure that in all these things thou 



PRAYERS 211 

meanest us good, and out of these seeming evils still 
producest good, making all things work together for 
the highest advantage of thine every child, with whom 
thou hast no son of perdition and not a single castaway. 
We thank thee for that other, that transcendent world, 
beyond this globe of matter and this sphere of present 
human consciousness. We thank thee for that home 
whereinto thou gatherest the spirits of just men made 
perfect, and for our dear ones who have gone thither 
before us, and bless thee that they are still not less 
near because they are transfigured with immortal glory, 
and have passed on in the road ourselves must also 
tread. We thank thee for not only the hope, but the 
certain consciousness of immortality that is within our 
soul, giving us light in our darkness, hope when else we 
should despair; and when we are bowed down and go 
stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and hungering 
heart, we thank thee that we can lift up our counte- 
nance towards that other world, and be filled with joy 
and gladness of heart. 

Our Father who art in heaven, we thank thee for 
thyself, — the materiality of material things, the spir- 
ituality of our spirit, the movingest thing in motion, 
the livingest of life, the all-transcending in what is 
transcendent. O thou who art our Father and our 
Mother too, we thank thee for thy providence, which 
is over all thy works in this world, material, or human, 
or transcendent; yea, for the infinite love which thou 
bearest to everything which thou once hast borne. 

We pray thee that we may know thee as thou art, 
in all thine infinite perfection of power and wisdom and 
justice and holiness and love, and knowing, may have 
within us that perfect love of thee which casts out 
every fear. May there be in our soul that warming 



£12 PRAYERS 

strength of piety which shall give us the victory in our 
trial, making us strong for public or for unseen crosses 
that are laid upon our shoulders, and winging us with 
such strength that out of sorrow we shall fly towards 
thee, going through the valley of weeping, and com- 
ing off with not a stain upon our wings and no tear- 
drop in our eye. May there be in us such love of thee 
that we shall love every law which thou hast writ on 
sense or soul, and keep it in our daily lives, inward and 
outward, till all within us be beautiful, till our out- 
ward conduct be blameless, and we make every day thy 
day, all work sacrament, and our time a long com- 
munion, with use to our brothers, and with calmness, 
trust, and love to thee. So on earth may thy king- 
dom come, and thy will be done here now as it is in 
heaven, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the 
glory for ever and ever. 

XXVIII 

O thou Perpetual Presence, in whom we live and 
move and have our being, we would draw near unto 
thee once more in our mortal consciousness, adoring 
and thanking and worshiping thee, who art of our 
lives our most living thing, the cause and providence 
of all that be. We would remember before thee the 
blessings thou givest to be enjoyed, the duties to be 
done, the crosses we bear, and the temptations we en- 
counter ; we would spread all these things out before 
our eyes, and look at them in the light of thy conscious 
presence, and while we muse thereon may the fire of 
devotion so bum in our hearts that from our moment 
of worship we may gather a continual service of thee 
for all time to come. So may the meditations of our 
hearts, and the words even of our mouths, draw us 



PRAYERS 213 

nearer unto thee, and strengthen us for duty and hope 
and sorrow and dehght. 

Our Father, who art always with us, we thank thee 
for the material world thou hast given us, this great 
foodful ground underneath our feet, this wide over- 
arching heaven above our heads, and for the greater 
and lesser lights thou hast placed therein ; we bless 
thee for the moon which measures out the night, walk- 
ing in brightness her continuous round, and for the 
sun that pours out the happy and the blessed day all 
round thy many-peopled world. We thank thee for 
the green grass, springing in its fair prophecy, for 
the oracular buds that are promising glorious things 
in weeks to come. We thank thee for the power of 
vegitative and animative Hfe which thou hast planted 
in this world of matter, which comes up this handsome 
growth of plant and tree, this noble life of fish, insect, 
reptile, bird, beast, and every living thing. 

We thank thee for the human world whereof thou 
hast created us; we bless thee for the great spiritual 
talents wherewith thou hast endowed man, the crown 
of thy visible creation on the earth. We thank thee 
for our mind and our conscience and our heart, and 
all the manifold faculties which thou hast given us, 
whereby we put material things underneath our feet, 
making the ground to serve our seasons, and the sun 
to keep watch and distribute warmth about our gar- 
den and our farm, whereby we turn the vegetative and 
animative powers of earth to instruments for our 
bodily welfare, and our mind's and heart's continual 
growth. 

We thank thee for the work thou givest us to do on 
earth, in our various callings, wide-spread in the 
many-peopled town, or in some lonely spot hid in the 



^14. PRAYERS 

green world which compasses the town. We thank 
thee for all these things that our hands find to do, by 
fireside and field-side, in school, or shop, or house, or 
ship, or mart, or wheresoever thou summonest us in the 
manifold vocations of our mortal life. 

We bless thee for the joys which we gather from 
our toil, for the bread which strengthens our live 
bodies, for the garments and houses which shield us 
from the world without, for all the things useful, and 
the things of beauty, both whereof are a joy to our 
spirits. 

• We thank thee for the dear ones thou givest us on 
earth, called by many a tender name of friend, ac- 
quaintance, relative, lover or beloved, wife or husband, 
parent or child, and all these sweet societies of loving 
and congenial souls. We thank thee for the joy which 
we take in these our dear ones, whilst they are near 
us on earth, and when in the course of thy providence 
it pleases thee to change their countenance and send 
them away, we thank thee still for that transcendent 
world whereinto thou continually gatherest those that 
are lost in time, and are only found in eternity, and 
if reft from our arms are taken to thine, O thou In- 
finite Father, and Infinite Mother too. We thank 
thee that for all sorrows there is balm and relief, that 
this world which arches over our head, invisible to 
mortal eye, is yet but a step from us, and our dear 
ones, looking their last on earth, are born anew into 
thy kingdom of heaven, and enter into glory and joy 
which the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor our 
hungering hearts ever fully dreamed of in our highest 
thought. 

We thank thee, O Lord, for thyself, thou Trans- 
cendent World, who embracest this material earth and 



PRAYERS 215 

this human spirit, putting thine arms around all, 
breathing thereon with thy spirit, and quickening all 
things into vegetative, animative, or human life. We 
thank thee that whilst here on earth, not knowing 
what a day may bring forth, nor certain of our mortal 
life for a moment, we are yet sure of thine almighty 
power, thine all-knowing wisdom, and thy love which 
knows no change, but shines on the least and the 
greatest, on thy saint and on thy sinner too. We 
thank thee for the perfect providence wherewith thou 
governest the world of material, of growing, or of 
living things ; we bless thee that thine eye rests on each 
in all its history, that there is no son of perdition in all 
thy family, and that thou understandest our tempta- 
tions, that thou knewest before we were born whatso- 
ever should befall us, and that in thy fatherly loving- 
kindness and thy motherly tender mercy thou hast 
provided a balm for every wound, a comfort for every 
grief. We thank thee that when our kinsfolk and 
acquaintance pass from earth, howsoever they make 
shipwreck here, they land in thy kingdom of heaven, 
entering there in thine eternal providence, their eternal 
welfare made certain of before the earth began to be. 
While we thank thee for these things, who needest 
not our thanks, while our hearts, overburdened with 
their gratitude, lift up our prayerful psalm unto thee, 
and we remember our daily duties, and the glorious 
destination thou hast appointed for us, we pray thee 
that with great and noble lives we may serve thee all 
the days of our mortal stay on earth. May there be 
in us such a pious knowledge of thee, such reverence 
for thee, and such trust in thee, that we shall keep 
every law thou hast writ on our body or in our soul, 
and grow wiser and better, passing from the glory of 



216 PRAYERS 

a good beginning to the glory of a noble ending, as 
we are led forward by thy spirit, co-working with our 
own. Day by day, may we proclaim our religion by 
our faithful industry, doing what should be done, 
bearing what must be borne, and at all times acquit- 
ting us like men. So may thy kingdom come, and thy 
will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XXIX 

O thou Infinite Perfection, who fillest the world with 
thyself, and art not far from any one of us, we flee 
unto thee, and for a moment would draw near thee, 
that by the inspiration of our prayer we may know 
how not only to worship thee in our psalm and the 
adoration of our heart, but to serve thee with our work 
in all the daily toil of our mortal lives. We know 
that thou needest neither our psalm of thanksgiving, 
nor our aspiring prayer, but our heart and our flesh 
cry out for thee, the Living God, and for a moment we 
would join ourselves to thee, and warm and freshen 
our spirit in the sunlight of thy countenance, and 
come away clean and strengthened and made whole. 

Our Father, we thank thee for the material world 
in which thou hast placed us. We thank thee for the 
return of spring, bringing back the robin and the 
swallow from their wide wanderings, wherein thy provi- 
dence is their constant guard, watching over and 
blessing these songsters of the sky. We thank thee 
for the buds swelling on every bough, and the grass 
whose healthy greenness marks the approaching sum- 
mer, and the flowers, those prophets of better days 
that are to come. We bless thee for the air we 
breathe, for the light whereby we walk on the earth, 
for the darkness that folded us in its arms when we 



PRAYERS 217 

lay down thereunder, and that when we awoke we 
were still with thee. We thank thee for the bread 
which we feed upon, for the shelter which our hands 
have woven or have builded up, to fend us from an- 
noying elements. We thank thee for all the means 
of use and of beauty which thou givest us in the 
ground and the air and the heavens, in things that- 
move, that grow, that live. We thank thee that thou 
makest these all to wait on us, having kindness for our 
flesh, and a lesson also for our thinking soul. 

We thank thee for the human world, whereof thou 
hast made us in thine own image and likeness. We 
thank thee for the great faculties which thou hast 
given us, of body and of mind, of conscience and of 
heart and soul. We thank thee for the noble destina- 
tion which therein thou shadowest forth, for the great 
wants which thou makest in our spiritual nature, for 
the unbounded appetite thou givest us for the true and 
the beautiful, the right and the just, for the love and 
welfare of our brother men, and the vast and over- 
shadowing hope which thou givest us towards thee. 
We thank thee for this great nature thou hast given, 
with its hungerings and thirstings for ultimate wel- 
fare, for duty now and blessedness to come. 

We thank thee for all the various conditions of 
mortal life. We bless thee for the little children who 
are of thy kingdom, and whom thou yet sufFerest to 
come unto us ; we thank thee for these perpetual 
prophets of thine, whose coming foretells that progres- 
sive kingdom of righteousness which is ever at our 
doors, waiting to be revealed; we thank thee for the 
joy which these little buds of promise give to many 
a father's and mother's heart. We thank thee for 
the power of youth ; we bless thee for its green prom- 



218 PRAYERS 

ise, its glad foretelling, and its abundant hope, and 
its eye that looks ever upwards and ever on. We 
thank thee for the strength of manhood and of woman- 
hood, into whose hands thou committest the ark of 
the family, the community, the nation, and the world. 
We thank thee for the strength of the full-grown 
body, for the vigor of the mature, expanded, and 
progressive mind, and all the vast ability which thou 
treasurest up in these earthen vessels of our bodies, 
holding for a moment the immortal soul thou confidest 
to their care. We bless thee for the old age which 
crowns man's head with silver honors, the fruit of 
long and experienced life, and enriches his heart with 
the wisdom which babyhood knew not, which youth 
could not comprehend, and only long-continued man- 
hood or womanhood could mature at length and make 
perfect. O Lord, we thank thee that thou hast made 
us thus wondrously and curiously, and bindest together 
the ages of infancy and youth and manhood and old 
age, by the sweet tie of family and of social love. 

We thank thee for that other, the transcendent 
world, which is the home of the souls thou hast disen- 
chanted of this dusty flesh and taken to thyself, where 
the eye may not see, nor the ear hear, nor our own 
hungering and thirsting heart fully understand, all 
the mysterious glory which thou preparest for thy 
daughters and thy sons. We thank thee for the good 
men who have gone before us thither. We bless thee 
that the little ones whom thou sufferest to come unto 
us, when they depart from us, thou takest to this other 
world and watchest over and blessest there. We thank 
thee that thereinto thou gatherest those who pass out 
of earth, in their babyhood, their youth, their man- 
hood, their old age, and settest the crown of immor- 



PRAYERS ai9 

tality on the baby's or the old man's brow, and blessest 
all of thy children with thyself. 

O thou, who art almighty power, all-present spirit, 
who art all-knowing wisdom, and all-righteous jus- 
tice, we thank thee for thyself, that thou art in this 
world of matter and this world of man, and that 
transcendent immortal world. Yea, we bless thee that 
thou art the substance of things material, the motion 
of all that moves, the spirituality of what is spirit, 
the life of all that lives, and while thou occupiest the 
world of matter and the world of man, yet tran- 
scendest even our transcendence, and hast thine arms 
around this dusty world, this spiritual sphere, and the 
souls of good men made perfect. We thank thee for 
the motherly care wherewith thou watchest over every 
living thing which thou hast created, guiding the 
swallow and the robin in their far-wandering but not 
neglected flight, for without thee not a sparrow falls 
to the ground, and thou overrulest the seeming acci- 
dent even for the sparrow's good. 

Father, we remember before thee our daily lives, 
thanking thee for our joy, and praying thee that 
there may be in us such love of thee, such reverence 
and holy trust, that we shall use the world of matter 
as thou meanest us to use it all. In our daily work, 
may we keep our hands clean, and an undefiled heart ; 
may we do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly 
with thee. When our cup runs over with gladness, 
may we grow bountiful to all that need our wealth, 
using our strength for the weakness of other men, to 
lift up those that are fallen, to be eyes to the blind, 
and feet to the lame, and to search out the cause which 
we know not. We remember our sorrows before thee, 
and when our mortal hearts are afflicted, when sick- 



220 PRAYERS 

ness lajs waste our strength, when riches flee off from 
our grasp, when our dear ones in their infancy, their 
jouth, their manhood or old age, are Hfted away from 
the seeing of our eyes — may our hearts follow them 
to that transcendent world, and come back laden with 
the joy into which they have already entered. Our 
Father, may we so know thee as all-wise and all- just 
as to never fear thee, but perfect love shall cast out 
fear, and a continual springtime of faith bud and 
leaf and blossom and grow and bear fruit unto eternal 
righteousness. So may we pass from glory to glory, 
transfiguring ourselves into an ever higher and more 
glorious likeness of thyself, and here on earth enter 
into thy kingdom and taste it§ joy, its gladness and 
its peace. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XXX 

O thou Infinite Presence, who livest and movest and 
hast thy being in all things that are above us, and 
around us, and underneath, for a moment we would 
feel thee at our heart, and remember that it is in thee 
we also live and move and have our being. Conscious 
of thy presence, we would look on our daily lives, that 
the murmur of our business, and the roar of the streets, 
and the jar of the noisy world, may mingle in the 
prayer of our aspiration, and our devout soul may 
change it all into a psalm of gratitude and a hymn 
of ever-ascending prayer. May the meditations of 
our hearts and the words that issue thence draw us 
nearer unto thee, who art always above us and about 
us and within. 

We bless thee for the material world, wherewith 
thou environest us beneath and about and overhead. 



PRAYERS 221 

We thank thee for the night, where thy moon walks 
in brightness, pouring out her beauty all around, with 
a star or two beside her ; and we bless thee for the sun, 
who curiously prepares the chambers of the east with 
his beauty, and then pours out the golden day upon 
the waiting and expectant ground. We thank thee 
for the new life which comes tingling in the boughs 
of every great or little tree, which is green in the new- 
ascended grass, and transfigures itself in the flowers to 
greater brightness than Solomon ever put on. We 
thank thee for the seed which the farmer has cradled 
in the ground, or which thence lifts up its happy face 
of multitudinous prophecy, telling us of harvests that 
are to come. We thank thee also for the garment 
of prophecy with which thou girdest the forests and 
adornest every tree all round our northern lands. 
We bless thee for the fresh life which teems in the 
waters that are about us, and in the little brooks which 
run among the hills, which warbles in the branches 
of the trees, and hums with new-born insects through- 
out the peopled land. O Lord, we thank thee for a 
day so sweet and fair as this, when the trees lift up 
their hands in a psalm of gratitude to thee, and every 
little flower that opens its cup and every wandering 
bird seem filled by thy spirit, and grateful to thee. 
We thank thee for all thine handwritings of revela- 
tion on the walls of the world, on the heavens above 
us and the ground beneath, and all the testimonies 
recorded there of thy presence, thy power, thy jus- 
tice, and thy love. 

f We thank thee not less for that perpetual spring- 
time with which thou visitest the human soul. We 
bless thee for the sun of righteousness which never 
sets, nor allows any night there, but, with healing in 



222 PRAYERS 

his beams, shakes down perennial day on eyes that 
open, and on hearts that, longing, lift them up to thee. 
We thank thee for the great truths which shine to us, 
the lesser light like the moon in the darkness of the 
night, and those great lights which pour out a con- 
tinuous and never-ending day about us where'er we 
turn our weary mortal feet. We thank thee for the 
generous emotions which spring up anew in every gen- 
eration of mankind, for the justice that faints not nor 
is weary, for the truth which never fails, for that 
philanthropy which goes out and brings the wan- 
derer home, which lifts up the fallen and heals the 
sick, is eyes to the blind and feet to the lame; yea, 
we thank thee for that piety which inspired thy sons 
in many a distant age, in every peopled land, and we 
bless thee that it springs anew in our heart, drawing 
us unto thee, and giving us a multitudinous prophecy 
of glories that are yet to come, while it sheds peace 
along the pathway where we turn our weary mortal 
feet. 

We remember before thee the various business of 
our lives, thanking thee for the bread we eat, the 
raiment we put on, the houses which shelter us, the 
tools that occupy our hands, and all this wonderful 
array of material things whereby thou marriest the 
immortal soul to this globe of lands about us and 
underneath. We thank thee for the process of our 
work, blessing thee for all which industry teaches to 
our intelligent hand, to our thoughtful mind, to our 
conscience, which would accord it with thy law, to our 
hearts, which would love each other, and to our soul, 
which gains not only daily bread for the body, but 
bread of life for itself, yea, angel's bread, wherewith 
thou administerest the industrial sacrament to our 
lips in our daily toil. 



PRAYERS 2SS 

We remember before thee our various duties and 
temptations on the earth. In the time of our youth- 
ful passion, we pray thee that conscience may light 
its fire within our heart, to shed its light along our 
path, that we stumble not, nor fall into the snare of the 
destroyer; and in the more dangerous hour when am- 
bition tempts the man, we pray thee that with great- 
ness of religion we may bid this enemy also stand be- 
hind us, and wait till we bind his hands and make him 
bear our burdens and grind the mill whereby we 
achieve greater glories for ourselves. We pray thee 
that when we are weak and poor and foolish, we may 
remember the source of all strength and all riches and 
all wisdom; and when we grow strong and rich, wise 
and good, may we never forget our duty to the poor, 
the weak, the foolish and the wicked man, but, remem- 
bering that mercy is more than sacrifice, may we love 
others as we love ourselves, and forgive them as we 
ask thy blessing on us in our trespasses and our sins. 

We remember before thee those that are near and 
dear to us, joined by many a pleasant tie, seen by the 
eyes, or felt only in the soul which trembles across 
distances, and with the electric bond of love joins the 
distant as the near. We thank thee for all that we 
love, and who in turn love us, and, mid the noisy world, 
we bless thee for the quiet satisfaction which comes to 
peaceful loving souls. 

Father, we remember not less those who are of us, 
if with us no more, and while we dare not thank thee 
that the mortal has faded from our sight, we thank 
thee that we know that when friend and lover are put 
from us, they go not into darkness but into unspeak- 
able light, bom out of the world of time to live for 
ever in thy glorious eternity. 



224. PRAYERS 

Our Father, we remember before thee our whole 
country, thanking thee for the many blessings thou 
hast given us, for the great multitude of its people, 
for the abundance of its riches, for its industry which 
fails not, and its mind which grows ever the more in- 
telligent. We thank thee for great men who in 
times past bore to this land the seed of promise, planted 
it in the wilderness, watched over it, defending with 
their tears, and enriching with their blood; yea, who 
drew swords in its manly defense. We thank thee 
for these men, for these great, noble, valiant souls, 
who in our day of pilgrimage and of revolution were 
faithful to mankind's sorest need, and wrought for 
us so great deliverance. 

And now. Lord, we remember before thee one, two 
years since felled by the assassin's coward hand, him- 
self not less noble than the noblest, and by the stripes 
of our iniquity which were laid on him, disabled alike 
from public duty and private joy, him whom the 
waters, cradling, rock, while he seeks in other lands the 
quiet and the health this cannot offer. We thank thee 
for his valiant soul which remembered its bravery when 
others thought but of discretion, and that he bore a 
man's testimony in the midst of an unmanly crowd 
of mean men, and deserved greatly of his own genera- 
tion, and ages that are to come. We know that we 
need not ask thy blessing on him, but in our hearts we 
would bear his memory exceeding precious.^ 

Father, we pray thee that in every emergency of 
our lives we may be faithful to the duty which the 
day demands, and with reverent spirits acquit us like 
men, doing what should be done, bearing what must be 
borne, and so growing greater from our toil and our 
sufferings, till we transfigure ourselves into noble im- 



PRAYERS 225 

ages of humanity, which are blameless within and beau- 
tiful without, and acceptable to thy spirit. So may 
thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it 
is in heaven; for thine is the kingdom and the power 
and the glory, the dominion and honor, for ever and 
ever. 

XXXI 

O thou Infinite Perfection, who art everywhere pres- 
ent, by day and night, we would flee unto thee, and 
for a moment take thee to our consciousness, in whom 
we live and move and have our being, as thou also 
livest and movest and hast thy being in us. Conscious 
of our dependence upon thee, we would remember our 
joys and our sorrows, praying thee that from our mo- 
ment of communion and of worship we may get new 
strength to serve thee all the days of our lives. O 
thou Infinite Mother, who art the parent of our bodies 
and our souls, we know that thou hast us always in 
thy charge and care, that thou cradlest the world be- 
neath thine eye, which never slumbers nor sleeps, and 
for a moment we would be conscious of thy presence 
with us, that thereby we may enlighten what is dark, 
and raise what is low, and purify what is troubled, 
and confirm every virtue that is weak within us, till, 
blameless and beautiful, complete and perfect, we can 
present ourselves before thee. 

Father in heaven and on earth, we thank thee for 
the world of matter thou hast given us, about us, un- 
derneath us, and above our heads. We thank thee for 
the genial year, whose sweet breath is now diffused 
abroad o'er all our northern land. We thank thee 
for this great inorganic and organic mass of things 

whereon we live. We bless thee for the world of 
XII— 15 



226 PRAYERS 

vegetative growth which comes creeping, creeping 
everywhere, spreading over the shoulders of the land, 
and running beneath the waters of the sea. We thank 
thee for the flowers which adorn the green grass, and 
which hang their open petals in wondrous beauty yet 
from many a lingering tree. We thank thee for these 
lesser and these greater prophets who proclaim in their 
oracles the various gospel of the year, foretelling the 
harvest of grass for the cattle, and of bread for man, 
and satisfaction for every living thing. We thank 
thee for the rain thou sheddest down from heaven, 
abundant in its season, and the genial heat thou min- 
glest with the air and earth, changing these seeming 
dead organic things to vegetative growth. We bless 
thee for the animated world of living things that feed 
upon the ground, that wing the air with their melodious 
beauty, or that sail unseen the depths of the sea. We 
thank thee for all this varied flock of speaking and 
of silent things which thou hast breathed upon with 
thy breath of life. We thank thee that from day to 
day thou spreadest a table for every great and every 
little thing, that thou feedest the fowls of heaven, and 
carest for the beasts of the earth, the cattle and the 
creeping things, taking care of oxen, and having thine 
eye on all the many millions of creatures which thou 
hidest in the waters of the sea, where thou feedest them 
with thy bounty, housing, and clothing, and healing 
all. 

We thank thee for this great human world which 
thou hast superadded to this earth, and air, and sea. 
We thank thee for the mighty capacities which thou 
hast given us for thought and toil, for use, and 
beauty's sweeter use, for duty and all the manifold 
works of mortal time. We bless thee for the eye of 



PRAYERS ^^7 

conscience which thy sun of righteousness doth so ir- 
radiate with healing in his beams, and we thank thee 
for this blessed power of affection which makes twain 
one, and thence educes many forth, and joins all in 
bonds of gladness and love. We thank thee for this 
uplifted and uplifting soul of ours, whereby we know 
thee, our Father and our Mother, and have serene de- 
light in thy continual presence and thy love. 

Father, we thank thee for that transcendent world 
near to the earth of matter and the soul of man, 
wherein thou dwellest, thou and the blessed spirits thou 
enclosest, as the sea her multitudinous and her fruitful 
waves. 

Father, we thank thee for thine own self, for thy 
fatherly loving-kindness, for thy motherly tender 
mercy, which are over all thy works, breaking their 
bread to the humbler things that are beneath us, and 
feeding us not less with bread from heaven, even the 
spiritual food which is our soul's dear sustenance. We 
ihank thee that when we slumber and when we wake, 
when we think of thee, and when our minds are on the 
cares of earth, or the joys of friendship, thou hast 
us equally in thy care, brooding over us with a mother's 
love, sheltering us with all the perfections of thine 
infinite being. Yea, we thank thee that when, through 
the darkness that lies about us, or the grosser dark- 
ness of perverted will within, we wander from thy 
ways, thy motherly love forsakes us not, but thou 
reachest out thine arm and bringest back the wanderer, 
rounding home at last, a wiser and a better man, that 
he has sinned, and suffered, and so returned. 

We remember before thee our inward and our out- 
ward lives, and pray thee that, on this material world, 
and of this human, and surrounded so by thee, we may 



^28 PRAYERS 

live great, blameless, noble lives. May there be in us 
that soul of piety which so regardest thine infinite 
power, wisdom, justice, and love, that we shall scorn 
to disobey the law which thou hast writ on flesh or 
soul, but keep all which thou commandest, and serve 
thee by a life that is continuall}?^ useful, beautiful, and 
acceptable with thee. In this springtime of the year, 
half summer now, may there be a kindred springtime 
in our soul, and the lesser and the greater prophets 
thereof, may they hang out their pleasing oracles, the 
gospel which promises a noble harvest of virtue in 
days to come. May we have such piety within, trans- 
figuring itself to such morality without, that we shall 
bear every cross which should be borne, do each duty 
which must be done, and at all times bravely acquit 
us Hke noble men. Thus may we grow to the measure 
of the stature of a complete and perfect man, pass- 
ing from glory to glory, till thou finishest thy work 
on earth through our hands, and welcomest us to thine 
own kingdom of heaven, to advance for ever and ever, 
from glory to glory, from joy to joy, as we are led 
by thee. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XXXII 

O thou who art always near to us, we in our con- 
sciousness would for a moment draw near unto thee, 
and, feeling thee at our heart, would remember the cir- 
cumstances of our daily lives, the joys we delight in, 
the sorrows we bear, the sins wherewith we transgress 
against thee, the grave, and solemn, and joyous du- 
ties thou givest us to do. 

O thou who givest to mankind liberally, we thank 
thee for the world of matter wherein thou hast placed 



PRAYERS 229 

us, for the heavens above our head, for the stars that 
burn in perennial splendor, though the misty exhala- 
tions of the earth may hide them from our sight. We 
bless thee for the sun which above the clouds pours 
down the light, and creates a world of beauty, ere long 
to be opened to our mortal sense. We thank thee for 
this great foodful ground underneath our feet, now 
garmented with such loveliness, and adorned with the 
manifold radiance of thy loving-kindness and thy ten- 
der mercy. We thank thee for the grass everywhere 
growing for the cattle, and for the bread which the 
farmer's thoughtful toil wins by thy providence from 
out the fertile ground. We thank thee for the seed he 
has cast into its furrows, and the blade piercing the 
earth with its oracle of promise, foretelling the weeks 
of harvest which are sure to follow in their appointed 
time. We thank thee that in the cold rain from the 
skies, thou sheddest down the unseen causes of har- 
vests both of use and of beauty which are yet to come. 

We thank thee for the love with which thou givest 
thy benediction to everything which thou hast made. 
Thou pasturest thy clouds on every ocean field, thou 
feedest thy mountains from the breast of heaven, thou 
blessest the flowers on a thousand hills, thou suppliest 
the young lions when they hunger from lack of 
meat, thou clothest the lily with beauty more than 
queenly, and through all these outward things that 
perish thou speakest of thine infinite providence, which 
watches over every sparrow that falls, and holds in 
thy hand the wandering orbs of heaven. 

We thank thee also for this great, glorious human 
nature which thou hast blessed us with. We thank 
thee for the body, so curiously and wonderfully made, 
fitted for all the various purposes of human need ; and 



^30 PRAYERS 

we thank thee for this spiritual part which thou hast 
breathed into this mortal. 

We bless thee for this toilsome and far-reaching 
mind, which gives us dominion over the earth beneath 
our feet, and makes the winds and the waters serve 
us, which tames the lightning of heaven, and leams 
the time from the stars by night and the sun by day. 
We thank thee for that great world of artistic use and 
beauty, and of scientific truth, which the human mind 
has made to blossom from out this foodful ground 
and these starry heavens wherewith thou girdest us 
about. 

We bless thee for the moral sense, hungering and 
thirsting after righteousness, and that thou fiUest our 
conscience with thine own justice, enlightening our 
pathway with the lamp of right, shining with its ever 
unchanging beams, to light alike the way of thy com- 
mandments and of human toil upon the earth. 

We thank thee for these dear affections, which set 
the solitary in families, and of twain make one, and 
thence bring many forth, peopling the world with in- 
fantile gladness, which grows up to manhood and to 
womanhood in all their various forms. We thank thee 
for that unselfish and self-forgetful love which toils 
for the needy, which is eyes for the blind, and feet for 
the lame, and is wisdom for the fool, and spreads civili- 
zation all round the world, giving freedom to the slave 
and light to those who have long sat in darkness. 

We thank thee for this overmastering religious 
faculty, the flower of intellect and conscience and the 
affections, and we bless thee that by this we know thee 
instinctively, and have a joyous delight in thy pres- 
ence, opening our flower, whereinto thou sheddest gen- 
tle dew, warming it with all thy fatherly and motherly 
love, blessing us from day to day, from age to age. 



PRAYERS 231 

We thank thee for the great triumphs of the human 
race, that while thou Greatest us individually as little 
babies, and collectively as wild men, slowly but cer- 
tainly thou leadest thy children from low beginnings, 
ever upward and ever forward, towards those glorious 
heights which our eyes have not seen nor our forefeel- 
ing hearts completely understood. We thank thee for 
the truth, the justice, the philanthropy and the piety, 
which elder ages have brought forth and sent down 
to us, to gladden our eyes and to delight our hearts. 
We thank thee for those great, noble souls whom thou 
createdst with genius and filledst with its normal in- 
spiration, who have shed light along the human path 
in many a dark day of our human history, and in every 
savage land. And above all these do we thank thee 
for that noble brother of humanity, who, in his humble 
life, in a few years, revealed to us so much of justice, 
so much of love, and with such blameless piety looked 
up to thee, while he forgave his enemies, putting up 
a prayer for them. And not less, O Father, do we 
thank thee for the millions of men and women, who 
with common gifts and noble faithfulness have trod 
the way of life, doing their daily duties all unabashed 
by fear of men. We thank thee for what has been 
wrought out by these famous or these humble hands, 
which has come down to us. 

O Lord, we thank thee for thyself. Father and 
Mother to the little child and the man full-grown. We 
thank thee that thou lovest thy savage and thy civ- 
ilized, and puttest the arms of motherly kindness about 
thy saint and round thy sinner too. O thou who art 
infinite in power and in wisdom, we bless thee that we 
are sure not less of thine infinite justice and thy per- 
fect love. Yea, we thank thee that out of these per- 



I 



232 PRAYERS 

fections thou hast made alike the world of matter and 
of man, providing a glorious destination for every 
living thing which thou broughtest forth. 

We remember before thee our daily lives, and we 
pray thee that in us there may be such knowledge of 
thy true perfection, such a feeling of our nature's 
nobleness, that we shall love thee with all our under- 
standing, with all our heart and soul. We remember 
the various toils thou givest us, the joys we rejoice in, 
the sins we have often committed, and we pray thee 
that there may be such strength of piety within us, 
that it shall bring all our powers to serve thee in a 
perfect concord of harmonious life. In youth may no 
sins of passion destroy or disturb the soul, but may we 
use our members for their most noble work; and in 
manhood's more dangerous hour may no ambition lead 
us astray from the true path of duty and of joy. 
Wherever thou castest the lines of our lot, there may 
we serve thee daily with a life which is a constant com- 
munion with thyself. So day by day may we trans- 
figure ourselves into nobler images of thy spirit, walk 
ever in the light of thy countenance, and pass from 
the glory of a manly prayer to the grander glory of 
a manly life, upright before thee and downright be- 
fore men, and so serve thee in the flesh till all our days 
are holy days, and every work, act, and thought be- 
comes a sacrament as uplifting as our prayer. So may 
thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it 
is in heaven. 

XXXIII 

O thou Infinite Presence, who occupiest all space 
and all time, with thy perfections, we flee unto thee, 
and would feel for a moment the consciousness of thee. 



PRAYERS 233 

and in the light of thy countenance would we spread 
out our life before thee, and so pay thee worship in 
our prayer that we may give thee manly and womanly 
service all our days, with continual cleanness of hands 
and gladness of heart. We know that thou needest 
no prayer from our lips or our hearts, but in our 
feebleness and dependence upon thee, we love to join 
ourselves for a moment, in our silent or our spoken 
prayer, with thee, who art our Father and our Mother, 
that we may gird up our loins and strengthen our 
spirit before thee. 

O Lord, who givest to mankind liberally, and upbraid- 
est not, we thank thee for the blessings thou bestow- 
est from day to day. We thank thee for this material 
world, now clad in its garment of northern beauty, 
for the great sun which all day pours down his light 
upon the waiting and the grateful world, and for the 
earth underneath our feet. We bless thee for the 
green luxuriance which fills up all the valleys and 
covers all the hills, and hangs in its leafy splendor 
from every tree. We bless thee for the grass, bread 
for the cattle, its harvest of use spread everywhere, 
and for the various beauty which here and there 
spangles all useful things which thine eye looks down 
upon. We thank thee for the grain which is the food 
of man, and for the green fruit hanging pendent on 
many a bough which waves in the summer wind, its 
wave-offering unto thee. We thank thee that all night 
long, when our eyes are closed, above our head there 
is another world of beauty, where star speaketh unto 
star, and though there be no voice nor language, yet 
thy great spirit therein watches alike over the sleep- 
ing and the wakeful world. 

Father, we thank thee for this great human world 



234 PRAYERS 

which thou hast created. We bless thee for the glo- 
rious nature which thou hast given us, above the mate- 
rial things and above the beasts who feed thereon, 
which thou hast made also subservient unto us. We 
thank thee for the vast talents, so various and so fair, 
which thou hast lodged in these earthen vessels of our 
bodies. We bless thee for our vast capacity for im- 
provement in every noblest thing, and that thou hast 
so made the world that while we seek the daily bread 
for our body which perishes in the using, we gain 
also by thy sweet providence that bread of life which 
groweth not old, and strengthens our soul for ever and 
€ver. 

We thank thee for the joys thou givest us here on 
earth, for the blessing which comes as the result of 
our daily toil, which feeds our mouths, and clothes our 
bodies, and houses and heals us in the world where 
shelter and medicine are kind to our mortal flesh. We 
thank thee for the education which comes from the 
process of all honest work, the humblest and the high- 
est. We bless thee for the moral sense, telling us of 
that star of right which shines for ever in thine heaven, 
and sheds down the light of thine unchanging law, 
even in the darkness of our folly and our sin. We 
bless thee for this great human heart by which we live, 
making us dear to kinsfolk and acquaintance, to friend 
and relation, joining the lover and beloved, wife and 
husband, child and parent, in sweet alliances of gentle- 
ness and love. Father, we thank thee for this soul 
of ours, which hungers and thirsts after thee, and will 
not be fed save with thy truth, thy justice, and thy 
love. 

We bless thee for the glorious history which thou 
hast given to humankind ; that from the wild babyhood 



PRAYERS 235 

wherein thou createdst man at first, thou hast led us 
up thus far, through devious ways to us not under- 
stood, but known to be ordered by thee, tending to that 
grand destination which thou appointest for all man- 
kind. We thank thee for the great prophets who have 
gone before us in every land and in every age, gifted 
with genius in their nature, and inspired from thee 
through the noble use of the talents thou gavest them. 
We thank thee for the truths they taught, for the 
justice they showed, for the love to men which was 
their faith and their daily life, and the piety wherein 
they walked and were strengthened and made glad. 
We bless thee for the ways of the world which were 
made smooth by the toil of these great men, and that 
we can walk serene on paths once slippery with their 
blood and now monumented with their memorial bones. 
O Lord, we thank thee for our noble brother who in 
many generations gone by brought so much of truth 
to darkling man, showed so much of justice, and lived 
so much of philanthropy to men and of piety to thee. 

Our Father, while we thank thee for the material and 
the human world, we bless thee also for that divine 
world which transcends them both. We thank thee 
for that heaven, the abode of spirits disembodied from 
the earth, and we lift up our eyes towards those who 
have gone before us, our fathers, or our children, hus- 
band or wife, kinsfolk and friends, and we thank thee 
that we know that they are all safe with thee, thy 
fatherly arms around them, and thy motherly eye giv- 
ing them thy blessing. 

We thank thee for thyself, who fillest that world 
and also this globe of matter and this sphere of man 
with thy transcendent presence. We bless thee for 
thine almighty power, thine all-knowing wisdom, thine 



S36 PRAYERS 

all-righteous justice, and thine all-blessing love, which 
watches over and saves every son and daughter of man- 
kind. In the midst of things which we do not under- 
stand, we bless thee that we are sure of thee, and have 
towards thee that perfect love which casts out every 
fear. 

We pray thee that in our soul there may be such 
depth of piety and such serene and tranquil trust in 
thee, that in our period of passion we shall tame every 
lust that wars against the soul, making it our servant, 
not our master ; and in manhood's more dangerous day 
may we tame likewise the power of ambition, and make 
that our servant, to run before us and prepare the way 
where our laborious justice, our truth-loving wisdom, 
our philanthropy and our morality, with generous feet, 
shall tread triumphant in their journey on. May we 
use this world of matter to build up the being that we 
are to a nobler stature of strength and of beauty ; and 
the great powers which thou hast given us, of mind, 
of conscience, of heart, and of soul, may we educate 
and culture them till we attain the measure of the 
stature of a perfect man, and have passed from glory 
to glory, till thy truth is our thought, and thy justice 
our will, and thy loving-kindness is the feeling of our 
heart, and thine own holiness of integrity is our daily 
life. Thus may thy kingdom come, and thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XXXIV 

O thou Infinite Presence, who art everywhere, whom 
no name can describe, but who dwellest in houses made 
with hands, and fillest the heaven of heavens, which 
run over with thy perfections, we would draw near to 
thee for a moment, who for ever art near to us, and 



PRAYERS 237 

would think of our own lives in the light of thy coun- 
tenance, and so gird up our souls for duty, and 
strengthen ourselves for every care and every cross 
thou layest on us. We know that thou needest noth- 
ing at our hands nor at our heart, but in our weakness, 
conscious of our infinite need of thee, we would 
strengthen ourselves by the prayer of a moment for 
the service of a day, and a week, and all our lives. 

We thank thee for the world wherein thou hast cast 
the lines of our lot. We bless thee for the material 
universe where thou hast placed us. We thank thee 
for the heavens over our heads, purple and golden in 
their substance, and jewelled all over by night with 
such refulgent fires. We thank thee for the moon 
which there walks in beauty, shedding her romantic 
glory on the slumbering ground, and making poetic the 
rudest thing in country or in town. We thank thee 
for that great sun which brings us the dayspring 
from on high, and fringes the earth at morning and 
at evening with such evangelic beauty, and all day 
warms the great growing world with thy loving-kind- 
ness and thy tender mercy too. We thank thee for the 
earth underneath our feet, and the garment of green 
beauty wherewith the shoulders of the northern world 
are now so sumptuously clad. We thank thee for the 
harvest of bread for the cattle and of bread for man, 
growing out of the ground, and waving in the summer 
wind. We thank thee for the beauty which thou en- 
thronest in every leaf, which thou incamatest in every 
little grass, and wherewith thou fringest the brooks 
which run among the hills, and borderest the paths 
which men have trod in wood and field. 

We thank thee likewise for the noble nature which 
thou hast given to us, for this spiritual earth and heaven 



238 PRAYERS 

which we are ; we thank thee for the glow of material 
splendor, of purple and of gold, wherewith thou invest- 
est us, and for the more than starry beauty with which 
our souls are jeweled forth. We thank thee for the 
lesser truths which walk in beauty in our infantile dark- 
ness, and the greater which in manhood's prime shed 
down the constant day, and fringe with morning and 
with evening beauty our manly life. We thank thee 
for the other harvests, both of beauty and of use, 
which grow out from the human soul, for the truths 
that we know, for the justice that we see, for the love 
that we feel to our brother-men, and all the manifold 
felicities we gather from the accordance of congenial 
souls that make sweet music on the earth. We bless thee 
for our dear ones, folded in our arms, sheltered under- 
neath our roof, fed with the toil of our hands or our 
heads, for those who are bone of our bone and flesh of 
our flesh, and those others not less who are soul of 
our soul. We thank thee for those who daily or weekly 
gather with us, the benediction to our eyes, their voice 
the household music of our hearts, and for those also 
who are scattered abroad, and are of us still, though 
no longer with us. We thank thee for all these joys 
which thou givest to our earthly flesh and to our 
heavenly soul. 

We bless thee for thyself, that we know of thine in- 
finite perfections, thy power unending, thy justice 
all-righteous, thy wisdom all-knoAving, and thy love 
which blesses and saves mankind with beatitudes 
which we did not know or dared not ask, and could 
not even dream of in our highest mood of prayer. We 
thank thee that while thou foldest the great universe 
in thine arms and carest for every system of suns and 
stars, not less thou feedest every little plant with sacra- 



PRAYERS S!39 

mental cup from each cloud, holding a blessing for 
the trees and the grass. We thank thee that thou 
also watchest over the spider's nightly web spread out 
upon the grass, and carest for every great and every 
little thing, and art Father and Mother to all the things 
that be. O Lord, we thank thee that thou lovest us 
not only for what we are to-day, and for the small 
service we render to each other; but as no earthly 
father, as no mortal mother loves her only child, so thou 
lovest us, not for the service that our hands can ren- 
der, or our grateful hearts in hymns of thanksgiving 
can ever pray, but from thine own sweet infinitude 
of love pourest out thine affection on Jew and Gentile, 
on Christian and heathen, loving thy sinner as thou 
dost thy saint. 

We pray thee that, so gifted, and surrounded so, 
and thus watched over by thy providence, we may 
know thee as thou art, and love thee with all our under- 
standing and our heart and soul. May we keep the 
law which day by day thou writest eternally on our 
flesh and in our soul, and serve thee with every limb of 
our body, with our spirit's every faculty, and what- 
soever power we gain over matter or over man. In 
us may there be such love and such trust in thee that 
we shall keep every law, do every duty, and make our- 
selves in thy sight as fair as the flowers on earth, or 
the stars in heaven. May no unclean thing stain our 
hands, no wicked feeling despoil us of beauty within 
our heart, and may we love our brothers as ourselves, 
and thee above all. Thus from the baby-bud whereinto 
we were bom, may we open the great manly and 
womanly glory of the flower of earthly life, and bear 
fruit of eternal life in thy kingdom of heaven. So 
day by day may thy kingdom come, and thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven. 



240 PRAYERS 

XXXV 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who dwellest in houses made 
with hands, and everywhere not less hast thy dwelhng- 
place, we flee unto thee to remember before thee the 
joys we deHght in, the duties thou givest us to do, 
and the sorrows we needs must bear, and in the light 
of thy countenance we would be strengthened for 
every duty, and filled with gratitude for every joy 
thou givest. As thou feedest the ground with sun- 
light from on high, and waterest it, when it asketh 
not, from thy sacramental cup, out of the heavens, 
so we know that thou wilt feed and water us with thy 
bounty, and needest not that we should ask thee ; but 
in our darkness we turn unto thee for light, and in 
our weakness, from thine infinitude we would fill our lit- 
tle urns with strength, and make ourselves beautiful in 
thy sight. 

O thou who art our Father and our Mother, we 
thank thee for the loving-kindness and the tender 
mercy which are over all thy works. We bless thee 
for the harvests of bread which are growing out of 
the ground under the incessant heat of summer, and 
we thank thee for the exceeding beauty wherewith thou 
givest thy benediction on the daily bread not less of 
cattle than of men. We thank thee for the transient 
flowers which line the wayside, and clothe the hedges 
and adorn the fields with heavenly magnificence, and 
we thank thee for all that perennial beauty which thou 
enthronest in the stars on high. We bless thee for 
the moon's romantic story, every night told to us, and 
the glorious loveliness of day which the sun pours out 
from the golden urn of thy magnificence. We bless 
thee that thou hast lined the borders of the sea with 



PRAYERS 241 

^een and purple beauty, and scarfed the mountains 
with savage loveliness, and with the morning's and the 
evening's twofold ring of beauty thou marriest for 
ever the day and night, revealing in this material mag- 
nificence tokens and signs of thine own loving-kind- 
ness, which passeth knowledge, and the sovereign 
beauty of thy spirit, which steals into our souls. 

Father, we thank thee that, creating this world so 
great and adorning it so fair, thou hast yet made our 
spirit vaster than the bounds of time and space, and 
givest us power to adorn it with magnificence that 
shames the green and purple lining of the sea, and to 
put the stars of heaven out of sight with its sweet 
glory and the bravery of its spiritual loveliness. We 
thank thee for the great nature thou hast given us ; 
we bless thee for its power of ceaseless progress, of 
continually growing greater and nobler, and fairer 
decked with beauty springing from the innermost of 
our soul. We thank thee for every triumph which 
mankind has won, for all the great truths which have 
come sounding musical from past times, for all the 
noble men whom in distant days thou raisedst up out 
of humanity to tell us of our power, and in their lives to 
reveal to us so much of thyself. 

We thank thee for men and women in our own time 
not less gifted, nor less faithful, who also speak as 
thou inspirest them, telling words of truth and of jus- 
tice and of love, and by street-side, and in lane, 
and house, and everywhere, pursuing the calm and 
beautiful gospel of their lives, wherein they publish 
humanity to all mankind. 

We thank thee for all that has come to us from 

past times and our own day. We bless thee for the 

special gifts thou givest to us in our several families 
XII— 16 



I 



^42 PRAYERS 

and homes and hearts. We thank thee for the new- 
born Hfe we rejoice in, and for other Hves that are 
spared, long familiar to our eyes and our heart. 

We bless thee for the various seasons of life, thank- 
ing thee for the little bud of infancy, and for the 
great handsome flower of manly and womanly life, 
fragrant with hope, and prophetic in its beauty. And 
not less do we thank thee for the ripened fruit of 
humanity ; yea, we bless thee for venerable age, crowned 
with silver, and rich with the recollections and the 
beatitudes of many deeds well done. We thank thee 
for all the joy thou givest in this manifold human 
life to child and parent, to lover and beloved, to hus- 
band and wife, kinsfolk and relative and friend, and 
the gladsome benediction which thus thou settest on thy 
children's head. Yea, we thank thee that when our 
mortal spring has bloomed out, when our earthly sum- 
mer is ended and vanished, and the ripened fruit falls 
from our human tree, the seed thereof thou takest to 
thyself to be with thee for ever and for ever. Yea, 
we thank thee for that transcendent world where thou 
takest to thyself the souls of all thy children, having 
no son of perdition, and blessing all with thine infinite 
fatherly and motherly love. 

Remembering all these things, we pray thee that we 
may live great and glorious lives, full of the strength 
of humanity, and enriched with the benedictions from 
thyself. May we use our bodies wisely, counting them 
but as the earthen vessels to hold the spiritual treasure 
thou givest us. In the innermost of our soul may we 
dwell familiar with thee, knowing all of thine infinite 
perfections, and so loving thee that our love shall cast 
out every fear, and we shall keep the law thou writest 
on this world of matter, and with thy still small voice 



PRAYERS US 

proclaimest within the innermost of our soul. Day 
by day may we grow to higher and higher heights, 
and as new-born blessings drop into our arms, as old 
familiar lives are spared to us, may we grow nobler 
and brighter by the blessings thou givest, till within 
us all shall be blameless, and outward everything shall 
be beautiful, and we shall pass from the glory of a 
good beginning to the greater glory of a triumphant 
end. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven. 

XXXVI 

O thou Infinite One, who art the perpetual presence 
in matter and in mind, we flee unto thee, in whom we 
live and move and have our being, and for a moment 
would hold thee in our consciousness, that from the 
morning worship of our Sabbath day we may learn 
to serve thee all the days of our lives, strengthened 
thereby and made blessed. 

We thank thee for the great world of matter, 
whereof thou buildest our bodies up, and whence thou 
feedest them continually from day to day. We thank 
thee for the fervent heat of summer, wherewith thou 
providest the food for cattle and for men, and satisfiest 
the wants of every plant; and we thank thee for the 
rain which in its season thou sheddest down on 
meadows newly mown, to call up new harvests where 
the farmer has already gathered one. We thank thee 
fpr the blessing of heat and of moisture, thy two 
great servants which so mysteriously create this vege- 
table world. We thank thee for the harvests grown 
or growing still out of the ground, and greatening 
and beautifying on many a tree. We thank thee for 
the bread of oxen and of men, which human toil by 



244. PRAYERS 

thy laws wins from out the ground, which thou feedest 
from the sun and the waters from thine own sweet 
heavens. 

We thank thee that while thus thou ministerest unto 
us things that are useful, thou givest us also the bene- 
diction of beauty, not only on our own bread, but on 
all the food wherewith thou satisfiest the wants of 
every living thing. We thank thee for the great gos- 
pel of nature which thou hast writ, and revealest con- 
tinually in the heavens over us, in the ground under 
us, and in the air whereby both we and all things con- 
tinually live. 

We thank thee for that greater world of spirit where- 
of thou buildest up our several persons, for the vast ca- 
pabilities which thou givest to us, the power to know, to 
feel, to will, to worship, and to serve and trust. We 
thank thee for the power of infinite growth which thou 
givest to thy child mankind, and impartest also unto 
each of us. 

We thank thee for all the blessings which have come 
to us from the men of times past. We bless thee for 
the great whom thou hast gifted with large talents and 
with genius, whom thou sendest from age to age to 
be the leaders and the guides of thy children, marshal- 
ing us the way that we should go. We thank thee 
for such as have brought scientific truth to light, for 
those who have organized into families and communi- 
ties and states and nations thy multitudinous children 
on the earth. We bless thee for all who have taught us 
truth, who have shown us justice, and have revealed 
thyself to us in all thine infinite beauty, and have 
taught us to hve a blameless life of love. We thank 
thee for thy prophets, thy evangelists, who in every 
tongue have spoken to mankind, doing great service 



PRAYERS M5 

to the millions who are about them, waiting for such 
high instruction. 

We thank thee for him whom in days long since 
thou raisedst up in the midst of darkness to establish 
light, and though mankind has worshiped our brother 
whom we ought but to follow and to imitate, guided 
by his light and warned by what was ill, yet we thank 
thee for the great truths he proclaimed in speech, and 
the noble life that he hved on earth, showing us the 
way to thee, telling us the truth from thee, and living 
so much of that life that is in thee and with thee for 
ever and ever. 

And not less do we thank thee for men with talents 
no smaller in our own days, who likewise serve their 
fellows by telling truth and proclaiming justice, and 
living the calm, sweet life which is piety within and 
philanthropic love without. We bless thee for those 
whose gladdening feet print the earth with the benedic- 
tion of their presence, for those whose toilsome hands 
do good continually to mankind, and ask no return, 
for those whose large mind carries the lamp which is 
to guide mankind from Egyptian darkness to a large, 
fair place, where they shall dwell together in gladness 
and in peace ; and for such as reveal to our conscious- 
ness the great truths of thine infinite goodness, power, 
and love, and who incarnate them in life, — - O Lord, 
we thank thee for these, the prophets and apostles, 
the sages and the saints of our own day, called by 
whatever name, and wherever the lines of their lot be 
cast. 

We remember before thee thine own infinite perfec- 
tion, and while we thank thee for the world of matter 
and the world of spirit, which are thy gifts, still more 
do we thank thee for thyself who art the giver, fold- 



246 PRAYERS 

ing in thy bosom other worlds of matter which we 
know not of, and worlds of spirit whereof we dimly 
learn, and whereunto with continual yearning our 
spirit would ascend. We thank thee for thy provi- 
dence, which, mid many a dark day that seems to us 
Egyptian night, marks the Hntels of every door, and 
broods over every land, and with thy love comes into 
every household, great or small, and never departs 
thence, but leaves thy blessing ever fresh and ever 
new. 

We remember our lives before thee, our several joys 
that we thank thee for, and yet know not how to thank 
thee as we ought. The sorrows thou givest us, — we 
dare not praise thee for them, but in their darkness 
and their cloud, we still thank thee that thy light comes 
through the darkness, and thy hand is underneath the 
cloud, leading us forward through them to better and 
more glorious things. 

We remember our daily duties, how hard they often 
are, and we pray thee that we may use the noble facul- 
ties thou hast given us so as to bear every cross which 
must needs be borne, and grow greater by suffering 
what we needs must endure, and doing what thou com- 
mandest as our duty, and so being what thou wouldst 
have us be. Father we pray thee that in us there may 
be such knowledge of thee, such love towards thee, 
and such trust in thee, and such a noble pious life in 
ourselves, that we shall bring every limb of our body 
and our spirits' every faculty into thy service, and so 
outwardly, not less than inwardly, live lives that are as 
fair as the lilies of the stream or the stars of heaven, 
and so be blameless and beautiful and acceptable in 
thy sight. Thus may thy kingdom come, and thy 
will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 



PRAYERS 247 



XXXVII 



Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and 
everywhere, we flee unto thee, and for a moment would 
be conscious of thy presence, and in the light of thy 
countenance would we remember our joys and our sor- 
rows, our duties, our transgressions, and our hopes, 
and lift up to thee the glad psalm of gratitude for all 
that we rejoice in, and aspire towards the measure of 
a perfect man, and so worship thee that we shall serve 
thee all the days of our lives with a gladsome and ac- 
cepted service. So may the prayer of our hearts be 
acceptable unto thee, and come out in our daily life 
as fair as the lilies and lasting as the stars. 

Our Father who art everywhere, and givest to thy 
creatures liberally and upbraidest not, we thank thee 
for the world of matter over our head and under our 
feet and about us on every side. We thank thee for 
the serene and stormy days wherewith thou equally 
givest thy sacrament of benediction to all things that 
are. We bless thee for all which the summer has thus 
far brought forth, for the great harvests of use which 
have grown alike for the cattle that serve and for im- 
perial man who commands the things that are about 
him and above him and underneath his feet, and for 
the beauty wherewith thou broiderest every field-side 
and roadside, and clothest the bosom of the stream, 
which blossoms with fragrant loveliness. We thank 
thee for the great psalm of creation, where day by 
day, when there is no voice nor language, star speaketh 
unto flower, and flower speaketh unto star, and the 
ocean proclaims to the sky the power, the order, the 
mind, the loving-kindness, and the tender mercy of thy 
spirit, dwelling in every great and every little thing. 



^48 PRAYERS 

We thank thee for this human world whereof our- 
selves are a part, for the vast faculties which thou 
hast given us. For the fair bodies, the crown of crea- 
tion, so curiously and wonderfully made, with senses 
which take hold of each material thing and feed 
thereon, converting its use and its beauty to means 
of human growth, we thank thee, and for this great 
power which thou givest us, feeding alike on truth and 
beauty, gaining the victory over material things, mak- 
ing the ground, the winds and the waters, the stars and 
the very fire of heaven, to serve our various needs. 
We thank thee for this great moral power, whereby 
our conscience comes into accord with thine, and we 
know thy justice and make it our human rule of con- 
duct, making ourselves useful to each other and ac- 
ceptable to thee. 

We thank thee for these generous affections which, 
unselfish, reach out their arms to father and mother, 
to kinsfolk and friend, to lover and beloved, husband 
and wife, parent and child, and all the great relation- 
ships wherewith the world is full. We thank thee for 
the greatening power of charity, which transcends the 
bounds of family and kindred blood, of acquaintance 
and congenial soul, and goes for ever loving on, care- 
ful for those who are cast down, and seeking to bless 
with light those who are sitting benighted in the cor- 
ners of the earth, to strike the fetters from the slave, 
to give knowledge to the ignorant, and to teach virtue 
and piety to men that are bound together in their sins, 
in nowise able to lift themselves up. 

Father, we thank thee that we know thee ; we bless 
thee for this great religious faculty, whereby we turn 
this world of matter and the world of soul into one 
great accordant psalm, and even the voices of the 



PRAYERS 249 

beasts that perish come to our ears full of religious 
melody, reminding us of thy providence, which is kind 
and large and not only to angels and to men, but to 
the meanest thing which serves thy purpose in the 
world. 

Father, we thank thee for that transcendent world, 
embracing the earth of matter and the humanity of 
men, that world of spirits which thou thyself inhabit- 
est, and whereunto thou drawest thy children from 
year to year, as thine angel strikes o£F the fetters of 
our flesh, and clothes us with immortality. Father, 
we thank thee for our dear ones who have gone before 
us, where the mortal eye sees them not, but where the 
human heart knows it is well with the child, and that 
thou stillest the agonies of father, husband, wife or 
lover, with thy sweet beneficence, and art kind and 
merciful alike to thy saint and thy sinner. We thank 
thee for that other world which draws our eyes through 
our tears and our darkness and fills us with hope. We 
bless thee for thine own infinite perfection, that we 
can rest under the shadow of thine almighty power, 
thine all-knowing wisdom, thine all-righteous justice, 
and thine all-embracing love, which never end. O 
Lord, our Father and our Mother too, we know 
that we need not ask any good thing from thee, nor 
in our prayer beseech thee to remember us, for thou 
lovest us more than we can love ourselves, and art 
more desirous of our infinite welfare than we for our 
prosperity a single day. 

We pray thee therefore that ourselves may be faith- 
ful to all the gifts which thou hast given us. Remem- 
bering thine infinite love and thy tender providence, 
may we put away all fear from us, and shaking off 
every particle of superstitious dust, may we open our 



250 PRAYERS 

souls to that glorious love which shall not be ashamed, 
but constrains us to keep every law which thou hast 
writ for us. So knowing thee and trusting thee, may 
we never think meanly of the nature thou hast given 
to us, but use these bodies as the vessels which hold the 
precious treasure thou hast poured therein, and with 
our mind and our conscience and our heart and our 
soul may we serve thee daily by that worship in spirit 
and in truth which alone achieves the great end of 
human destination. So using ourselves, may we wisely 
use the world of matter that is about us, and by our 
daily toil not only house and clothe and feed and medi- 
cine our flesh, but by the process thereof instruct our 
intellect and enlarge our conscience, fertilize our af- 
fections, and magnify this religious power that is in 
us. So day by day may we serve thee with perfect 
service, and when thou hast finished thy work with us, 
then, triumphant, may we journey home to be with 
thee, to know thee as ourselves are known, and pass 
from glory to glory for ever and ever, entering into 
those joys which the eye has not seen, nor the ear 
heard, nor the heart of man completely known. So 
may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth 
as it is in heaven. 

XXXVIII 

O thou Infinite Presence, who art everywhere, we 
flee unto thee for a moment, who art always near unto 
us. We would be conscious of thy power, thy wis- 
dom, thy justice, and thy love, and while we feel thee 
most intimate at our hearts, we would remember be- 
fore thee our joys and our sorrows, our hopes and 
our fears, whatever of virtue we have attained to, and 
the transgressions also wherewith we defile our souls. 



PRAYERS 251 

May the words of our mouths and the meditations of 
our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, Lord, our 
Strength and our Redeemer. 

O thou Infinite Giver of all things, we thank thee 
for this great, rich world, where thou castest the lines 
of our lot. We thank thee for the exceeding beauty 
which thou hast scattered throughout the heavens and 
everywhere on this broad earth of thine. We thank 
thee that thou moldest every leaf into a form of 
beauty, and globest every ripening berry into sym- 
metric loveliness, that thou scatterest along the road- 
sides of the world and on the fringes of the farmer's 
field such wealth and luxuriance of beauty to charm 
our eyes from things too sensual, and slowly lift us 
up to what is spiritual in its loveliness and cannot pass 
away. We thank thee for the glory which walks 
abroad at night, for the moon with interchange of 
waxing and waning beauty, shedding her silver radi- 
ance across the darkness, for every fixed and every 
wandering star whose bearded presence startles us 
with strange and fairest light, and for the imperial 
sun that from his ambrosial urn pours down the 
day on field and town, on rich and poor, baptizing 
all thy world with joy. We thank thee for the ground 
underneath our feet, whence the various particles of 
our bodies are day by day so curiously taken and won- 
derfully framed together. We thank thee for the 
spring, which brought her handsome promise, for the 
gorgeous preparation which the summer made in his 
manly strength, and we bless thee for the months of 
autumn, whose sober beauty now is cast on every hill 
and every tree. We thank thee for the harvests which 
the toil and the thought of man have gathered already 
from the surface of the ground, or digged from its 



252 PRAYERS 

tosom. We bless thee for the other harvests still 
growing beneath the earth, or hanging abundant beau- 
ties in the autumnal sun from many a tree, all over 
our blessed northern land. 

We thank thee likewise for this great human world 
which ourselves make up. We bless thee for the 
glorious nature which thou hast given us, for these 
bodies so curiously and so wonderfully made, and for 
this overmastering spirit which enchants into life this 
handful of fascinated clay. We bless thee for the 
large faculties which thou hast given us, and the un- 
bounded means for development afforded in our daily 
toil. We thank thee for the glorious destination 
which thou hast set before us, appointing us our duties 
to do, and giving us that grand and lasting welfare 
which thou wilt never fail to bestow on all and each 
who ask it with their prayer and toil. 

Father, we thank thee for the work which our hands 
find to do on earth. We bless thee that the process 
of our toil is education for our body and our mind, 
for our conscience and our heart and soul. We thank 
thee for the reward which comes as the result of our 
work; yea, we bless thee for the houses that we live 
in, for the garments that we wear, woven up of 
thoughtful human toil, for the bread that we eat, and 
the beauty that we gather from the ground, or create 
from the manifold material things which thou givest 
us. 

We thank thee for those who are near and dear to 
us, the benediction on our daily bread, the presence 
of blessing in our house, and the chief ornament of 
our human life. We thank thee for new-born blessings 
which thou sendest into the arms of father and of 
mother, to gladden them not only, but likewise relative 



PRAYERS 253 

and friend, and to people the earth with new genera- 
tions of progressive men. 

Father, we remember before thee likewise that other 
world which transcends the earth of matter and the 
world of human things ; we thank thee for that world 
which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor 
the heart of man fully conceived. We bless thee for 
the spirits of just men made perfect who have gone 
before us into that kingdom of heaven, to shine like 
the morning stars of earth, free from all the noises 
which harass the world. Father, we remember before, 
thee those dear to our hearts still, though severed from 
our side, and if we dare not thank thee when father 
or mother, when husband or wife, when son or daugh- 
ter, when kinsfolk and acquaintance have their coun- 
tenance changed, and they themselves are born anew 
into thy kingdom, we still thank thee that we are sure 
they are with thee, that no evil befalls the little one, 
or the mature one, or the aged, but the arms of thy 
love are abo^ut them, and thou leadest them ever for- 
ward and ever upward. 

O thou who art infinite perfection, we thank thee 
for thyself; and we know that out of thy power, thy 
wisdom, thy justice, and thy love, have flowed forth 
this world of matter, and this world of man, and that 
kingdom of heaven whereinto we all hope to enter at 
the last. We thank thee for thy loving-kindness and 
thy tender mercy, which are over all thy works, and 
where we cannot see, save through a glass darkly, we 
will still trust thee, with infinite longing and with abso- 
lute confidence, and that love which casteth out every 
fear. 

Father in heaven, so gifted as we are, surrounded 
so, and so destined for immortal welfare, we pray thee 



254. PRAYERS 

that we may live great and noble lives on the earth, 
unfolding our nature day by day, using our bodies 
for their purpose, and the soul for its higher use, 
growing wiser and better as we change time into life, 
and daily work into exalted character. So may we 
live that every day we learn some new truth, practise 
some new virtue, and become dearer and more beauti- 
ful in thine own sight. So may thy kingdom come, and 
thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

XXXIX 

O thou Infinite Spirit, who art always present, we 
know that we need not ask thee to remember us, and 
though in the weakness of our psalm we thus entreat 
thee, yet in the strength of our heart's prayer we know 
that thou needest no entreating, but rememberest us 
for ever and for ever. O thou who art our Father, 
we thank thee that all day long thou hast us in thy 
perfect care, and when the night comes, and we lay 
us down, that thou still watchest over us, and givest to 
thy beloved even in our sleep. Father, we will not 
ask thee to draw nigh unto us, for thou livest and 
movest and hast thy being in all things that are, and 
most eminent in our own soul. But we will seek to 
draw near unto thee, that, warmed by thy fire and 
strengthened by thy light, from the moment of our 
worship, we may serve thee better all the days of our 
mortal life. 

Father, we thank thee for thyself. We bless thee 
that thou createdst us and all things from thy perfect 
love, and pre-appointed us all to infinite and eternal 
welfare, and in the world about us and the world within 
didst wonderfully provide the means thereto, so that 
our follies even shall help us, and the wrath of man 



PRAYERS «55 

shall serve thy great purpose, and the remainder of 
■wrath thou wilt restrain. O Lord, who art our Father 
and our Mother too, we thank thee that thy love never 
fails, that though our mortal friends perish from out 
our sight, though father and mother may forget us, 
and we be faithless to our own selves, yet thou never 
leavest, nor forsakest, nor art unfaithful, but lovest 
us far more than we are able to ask, or even to think 
or to wish in the extreme of our heart. 

We bless thee for the world thou hast given us all 
around. We thank thee for the summer's beauty that 
has passed, leaving behind her the autumnal grain, 
and the rich and bountiful fruits of harvest. And 
now that the winter is upon us, we bless thee for this 
angel whom thou hast sent down to clothe the earth 
in white raiment, and adorn it with loveliness, this gar- 
ment of snow which thou so sweetly administerest out 
of thy heavens to all these northern lands, which hang 
on thy bounty and are fed from thy never-ending love. 

We thank thee for all the blessings which we have 
inherited from ages gone before us. We bless thee 
for so much of civilization as has fallen to our lot, 
for the noble institutions which our fathers builded 
up with their prayer and their toil, with their sword 
and their blood. We thank thee for every wise thing 
in our government which has come down to us, for 
all the excellence which is in our social organizations, 
for the friendly affection which adorns our household 
and our home. We thank thee for those schools of 
the people where thou instructest thy children from 
day to day ; we bless thee for the sweet influences which 
proceed thence and enrich mankind, while they instruct 
and lift us up. We thank thee for all the good there 
is in the churches called after thy name ; we bless thee 



256 PRAYERS 

for all the various denominations on the earth, thanking 
thee that their several faith — whether heathen, or 
Greek, or Jew, or Christian — is to them of such infinite 
worth. We bless thee for all of truth which we may 
have gathered from the various religions of the world, 
and most of all for what we have learned of thyself, 
in the calm and still communing of our own heart with 
thee. We thank thee that thou inspirest all of thy 
children, who, with open mind and obedient heart, flee 
iinto thee, seeking for truth, for justice, for love, and 
the sweet piety which so adorns and beautifies the in- 
ner man. 

We bless thee for the dear ones whom affection j oins 
to our heart, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, or 
joined by a still nearer and more delicious kindred of 
the soul. O Lord, we remember the friendships which 
time and distance cannot sever, we remember the love 
of kinsfolk and acquaintance, whom death only hides 
from our eye, but does not take from our heart. We 
thank thee for the just ones made perfect who have 
gone from us, and those who in their imperfection have 
been translated, for we know that thou placest them 
in the line of advancement, and leadest them ever up- 
wards, and still further on. 

We remember the great duties which are before us, 
incumbent on such natures and so large an inheritance 
and such ample opportunity for toil. We remember 
before thee with shame and confusedness of heart our 
own weakness, our folly and our pride, and the mani- 
fold transgressions wherewith we sin against our body 
or our soul, against thy goodness, O thou Infinite 
Mother, who boldest us in thy hand, and warmest us 
with the breath of thy love. And we pray thee that 
we may put away every folly, and be greatly chastised 



PRAYERS 257 

for every wrong, till, penitent therefor, we turn from 
it, and, though with bleeding feet, tread the paths of 
righteousness, leading us to peace and gladness and 
joy of soul. 

Father, we will not pray thee for this world's goods ; 
we know not of these things how to pray thee as we 
ought; therefore we dare not ask thee for riches or 
for poverty, for length of life, nor for shortness 
of days. But we pray thee that we may so toil in our 
various lot that we grow wiser and better, that we 
have a sure and abiding sense of thy goodness, thy 
power, and thy love, and of the great and noble nature 
thou hast given us, and the glorious destination thou 
hast prepared. Then may our hands work out our 
own salvation, with joy and with gladness then may we 
toil for our brother men ; and our poor and humble 
lives, — may they enrich and magnify the age we live 
in. Thus day by day may we serve thee, and so may 
thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as 
it is in heaven. 

XL 

O thou who art everywhere, whom no eye can see, 
but every heart can feel, we flee unto thee, and for 
a moment would hold thee in our consciousness, who 
art not far from any one of us, but always hast us 
in thy care and keeping, watching over and doing us 
good. We would remember before thee our joys and 
our sorrows, our hopes and our fears, our good deeds 
and our transgressions, and while we meditate thereon, 
may we be pienitent for every wrong deed, and greatly 
ashamed of all wickedness, but filled with noble aspira- 
tions, which shall bear us up to higher and higher 
heights of human excellence. O thou who art ever 
XII— 17 



258 PRAYERS 

near us, may thy spirit pray with us In our prayer, 
teaching us the things we ought to pray for, and 
strengthening us mightily in the inner man. 

O thou Infinite Spirit, we thank thee for all thy 
loving-kindness and thy tender mercy, which gave us 
our being first, and lengthenest out our lives from day 
to day, and from year to year, while thou presentest 
before us the immortal life, which eye has not seen, 
nor ear heard, nor our frail hearts completely under- 
stood. 

We thank thee for this fair sunlight which gladdens 
and cheers the faces of men, while it fills up with hand- 
someness the wintry hour. We thank thee for the 
stars, which all night long keep shining watch above 
a sleeping world ; and we bless thee for thy providence, 
which cares for us when we slumber, and when we wake. 
Yea, we thank thee that underneath thy care we can 
lay us down and sleep in safety, and when we wake 
we are still with thee. 

\^Tiile we stand at the entrance of a new year, re- 
membering thy presence with us, we cast our eyes back- 
ward, and we thank thee for all the joy and the glad- 
ness which came to our lot in the months that are past. 
We thank thee for the health and energy that have 
been in our earthly frame. We bless thee for the work 
our hands found to do, for the joy which comes from 
the harvested result of our toil and thought, and that 
greater but unasked joy and blessedness which comes 
from the education which the process of our daily 
toil in thy marvelous providence doth bring about. 

Father, we thank thee for the new ties of mortal 
love which we have formed on earth, whereby eyes 
behold light in mutual eyes, and hearts that once were 
twain become one. We thank thee for the new-bom 



PRAYERS 259 

blessings, these little Messiahs which thy loving-kind- 
ness has left in many an earnest home. We bless thee 
for all the joys which spring from the various affec- 
tions of life, which set the solitary in families, and of 
twain make one, and thence bring manifold life to in- 
crease and multiply and gladden the world. 

Father, we remember before thee the sorrows and 
disappointments with which we have sometimes been 
tried. We remember the dear ones whom thou hast 
taken from our mortal arms, whose countenance thou 
hast changed, and whom thou hast sent away ; and 
though we have not always been strong enough to 
understand thy providence, or to welcome the hand 
which took, as that which gave, yet we thank thee that 
through the darkness that surrounded us we can see 
a great and marvelous light, whereunto we are march- 
ing step by step, whither our dear ones are gone before, 
not lost, but found in thee. O Father on earth. Father 
in heaven. Father and Mother too, we thank thee for 
that other world whither so many of our friends are 
gone, and whither our own faces are also set. We 
thank thee that we are conscious of our immortality, 
and sure that when we drop the body we are clothed 
upon with immortal life, and pass from glory to glory, 
in a progress which can never end. 

We remember before thee the sins and transgres- 
sions which we have often committed ; we remember the 
wrong deeds that we have done, the unholy feelings 
that we have cherished, and the wicked thoughts which 
have sometimes come into our minds, and been bidden 
to rest and tarry there. O Lord, full of pain and 
sadness for every wrong deed we have done, for the 
unholy words we have spoken, and the wicked feelings 
we have nourished in us, we pray thee that we may 



260 PRAYERS 

not be cast down by our penitence, but ashamed of 
our transgression, and warned b}'^ our fall, walk more 
heedfully in times that are to come, and journey from 
strength to strength, our hands uplifted, and our 
hearts sustained by thee. 

O thou who knowest what all time shall bring forth, 
we cast our eyes forward, and though every day is 
hidden in darkness before our eyes, we pray thee that 
there may be such light within our heart, that it shall 
make it all glorious light about us, from hour to hour, 
and in the strength that thou givest us may we do 
the appointed duty of each day, and reverently bear 
its cross, and so fill up all our time with thy service. 
Within us may the true religion find its temple and its 
home ; may thy great truths dwell in us, and the noble 
feelings of love to each other, and unchanging and 
perfect love to thee; here may they live and do their 
perfect work; may they bring down every high 
thought which exults itself unduly, may they tame 
every unworthy passion, and change our ambition from 
evil into good, so that all our days shall be thy days, 
our prayer thy worship, and our life thy continual 
service, and all our earthly days be made gladsome 
and glorious in thy sight. Then, when thou hast fin- 
ished thy work with us on earth, may we lift up our 
eyes towards thee with gladness and great joy, and 
go home to that world where all tears are wiped from 
every eye, and where sorrow and sighing shall come 
no more, but we shall shine in the light of thy love, 
and pass from glory to glory. 

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. 
May thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth 
as it is done in heaven. Give us each day our daily 
bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those 



PRAYERS S61 

■who trespass against us. Lead us not into tempta- 
tion, but deliver us from its evil. For thine is the king- 
dom and the power and the glory for ever. Amen. 



PARABLES 



I 

TRUTH AGAINST THE WORLD 

A PARABLE OF PAUL 

One day Abdiel found Paul at Tarsus, after his 
Damascus journey, sitting meek and thoughtful at 
the door of his house; his favorite books, and the in- 
struments of his craft, lying neglected beside him. 
" Strange tidings I hear of you," said the sleek Rabbi. 
" You also have become a follower of the Nazarene ! 
What course shall you pursue after your precious con- 
version?" "I shall go and preach the Gospel to all 
nations," said the new convert, gently. " I shall set 
off to-morrow." 

The Rabbi, who felt a sour interest in Paul, looked 
at him with affected incredulity, and asked, " Do you 
know the sacrifice you make? You must leave 
father and friends ; the society of the great and the 
wise. You will fare hard, and encounter peril. You 
will be impoverished ; called hard names ; persecuted ; 
scourged ; perhaps put to death." " None of these 
things move me," said Paul. " I have counted the 
cost. I value not life the half so much as keeping 
God's law and proclaiming the truth, though all men 
forbid. I shall walk by God's light, and fear not. I 
am no longer a slave to the old law of sin and death, 
but a free man of God, made free by the law of the 
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." " Here," rejoined the 
Rabbi, " you have ease, and fame ; in your new work 
you must meet toil, infamy, and death." " The voice 
of God says, Go," exclaimed the Apostle with firm- 
265 



^66 PARABLES 

ness ; " I am ready to spend and be spent in the cause 
of truth." 

" Die, then," roared the Rabbi, " hke a Nazarene 
fool, and unbelieving atheist, as thou art. He that 
lusts after new things, preferring his silly convictions, 
and that whim of a conscience, to solid ease, and the 
advice of his friends, deserves the cross. Die in thy 
folly. Henceforth I disclaim thee. Call me kinsman 
no more ! " 

Years passed over; the word of God grew and pre- 
vailed. One day it was whispered at Tarsus, and ran 
swiftly from mouth to mouth in the market-place, 
*' Paul, the apostate, lies in chains at Rome, daily ex- 
pecting the lions. His next trouble will be his last." 
And Abdiel said to his sacerdotal crones in the syna- 
gogue, " I knew it would come to this. How much 
better to have kept to his trade, and the old ways of his 
fathers and the prophets, not heeding that whim of a 
conscience. He might have lived respectably to an 
easy old age at Tarsus, the father of sons and daugh- 
ters. Men might have called him ' Rabbi ' in the 
streets." 

Thus went it at Tarsus. But meantime, in his dun- 
geon at Rome, Paul sat comforted. The Lord stood 
by him in a vision, and said, " Fear not, Paul. Thou 
hast fought the good fight. Lo ! I am with thee to 
the end of the world." The tranquil old man replied, 
*' I know whom I have served, and am thoroughly per- 
suaded that God will keep what I have committed to 
Him. I have not the spirit of fear, but of love, and 
a sound mind. I shall finish my course with joy, for 
I see the crown of righteousness laid up for me, and 
now my salvation is more perfect, and my hope is 
higher, than when first I believed." 



PARABLES 267 

Then in his heart spoke that voice, which had spoken 
before on the Mount of Transfiguration, " Thou also 
art my beloved son. In thee am I well pleased.'* 

II 

HOW TO MOVE THE WORLD 

One day a philosopher came to Athens, from a far 
country, to learn the ways of the wonderful Greeks, 
and perhaps to teach them the great lore he treasured 
in his heart. The wise men heard him; sought his 
company in the gardens ; talked with him in private. 
The young men loved him. He passed for a wonder 
with that wonder-loving people. Among those that 
followed him, was the son of Sophroniscus, an ill- 
favored young man, a mechanic of humble rank. He 
was one of the few that understood the dark, Oriental 
doctrines of the Sage, when he spoke of God, man, 
freedom, goodness, of the life that never dies. The 
young man saw these doctrines were pregnant with 
actions, and would one day work a revolution in the 
affairs of men, disinheriting many an ancient sin now 
held legitimate. 

So he said to himself, when he saw a man rich and 
famous, — " Oh ! that I also were rich and famous, I 
would move the world soon. Here are sins to be 
plucked up and truths to be planted. Oh I that I could 
do it all, I would mend the world right soon." Yet 
he did nothing but wait for wealth and fame. One 
day the Sage heard him complain with himself, and 
said, " Young man, thou speakest as silly women. 
This gospel of God is writ for all. Let him that 

"WOULD MOVE THE WORLD MOVE FIRST HIMSELF. Hc 

that would do good to men begins with what tools God 



268 PARABLES 

gives him, and gets more as the world gets on. It 
asks neither wealth nor fame, to live out a noble life, at 
the end of thy lane in Athens. Make thy light thy 
life ; thy thought, action ; others will come round. 
Thou askest a place to stand on hereafter and move 
the world. Foolish young man, take it where thou 
standest, and begin now. So the work shall go for- 
ward. Reform thy little self, and thou hast begun 
to reform the world. Fear not thy work shall die ! " 
The youth took the hint; reformed himself of his 
coarseness, his sneers, of all meanness that was in him. 
His idea became his life, and that blameless and lovely. 
His truth passed into the public mind as the sun into 
the air. His acorn is the father of forests. His 
influence passes like morning, from continent to con- 
tinent, and the rich and the poor are blessed by the 
light and warmed by the life of Socrates, though they 
know not his name. 

Ill 

PARABLE OF ISHMAEL 

When Ishmael was a young man, motherless, an 
outcast, with no wife, nor child, nor friend, he rode 
on his only camel, laden with dates and corn, a few 
figs and olives, cummin and precious seeds, journeying 
through the desert to the fair of Surat. But his camel 
died in the wilderness, and for many days' journey 
did he wander on, barefoot and hungry, a ruined man, 
leaving his seed and all his fortune to perish there. 
" The 'place is cursed, and God has forsaken me" said 
Ishmael. The sun burnt him, his lip was parched with 
thirst, yet he died not, but reached at last in safety 
the hospitable tent of Joktan. 



PARABLES 269 

Years passed on. Ishmael became a patriarch, 
rich, the father of many strong men. He traveled 
once again, in old age, with his wives and children, 
and his children's children, men-servants and maidens, 
and a multitude of camels, an exceeding great com- 
pany, crossing the desert to go into the land of the 
Sabeans to die there. And lo ! the hot wind of the 
desert came upon them ; the water dried up in their 
leathern bottles; they were like to perish with thirst. 
The young men and maidens cried in their agony to- 
ward God. The old men bowed themselves and were 
silent, awaiting the stroke of the Lord. The moan of 
the camels it was tearful to hear. A day's journey 
of despair they travelled on, and came to a green for- 
est, with date trees and corn, figs and olives, grass, and 
a running well. They sat down and were refreshed, 
and as Ishmael, heavy with years, slept after his 
fatigue at noon-day, behold the same angel who had 
appeared and led Hagar to the well in the desert, 
came and stood before him, and said, " Son of 
Abraham ! rememberest thou thy camel that perished? " 
And Ishmael awoke, for he remembered it was here. 
He saw that of the com and the dates, the few figs, 
the olives, the cummin and the precious seeds which 
he had mourned over as lost, this cluster of fruit trees 
had grown, and these fields of grass and com. He 
blessed God and said, " Were it not for the misfortunes 
of my youth I had been ruined in my old age, and this 
great people with me. Wonderful are the ways of the 
Lordl" And he called the name of the place Kol 
Dahar El, for he said, " It is all God's work." And 
then he rested from his labors, and his tomb is there 
unto this day. 



270 PARABLES 

IV 

PARABLE OF NATHAN BEN ELIM 

Nathan ben Elim was a poor basket maker of 
Bagdat, with a limping foot and a single eye. Dwell- 
ing in a dirty lane, among the poorest of the destitute, 
he won a scanty bread for himself, his sickly wife and 
decrepit father. Early and late was Nathan at his 
toil — his frame was bent by labor, his face seared with 
want. Poverty and much distress was written all 
around him. Yet his face was a sunbeam, and the song 
of cheerfulness went up from his lips, ever as he 
wrought, or carried his light wares on his head for 
sale. 

Mahomet, the servant of God, had often met him 
in the bazaar. He was struck with the cheerful re- 
pose that smiled out of his rent garments, and made 
poverty respectable. One day he sought the poor bas- 
ket maker, as he sat in the only room in his house, 
and wove his baskets, intending to give alms to a man 
so deserving. "What maketh thee so happy.''" said 
the unrecognized Prophet. " Thou art poor and 
ignorant, and often sick, yet thy face is like Gabriel's. 
Tell me the art to be blessed." 

" Stranger," said he, " thou askest like silly women. 
I have but one eye, but he that has none may see how 
to be blessed. Why should not I be happy.? True 
I have suffering enough and poverty ; true, my children 
have all died before me, the last but forty days ago, 
slain by a ruffian ; true my work is hard, and my wife 
a shrew, whom Job and Moses and Solomon could not 
suffer, nor Gabriel tame with a beam of gentleness. 
Still, why should not I be blessed .f' Three things only 



PARABLES ni 

make up my peace: to he what God pleases, though 
poor and lame, and blind; to do, though hungry and 
bare, my daily duties, without distrust; and to have a 
good religious heart, A baby could have told you 
this." 

The Prophet said, " I came to relieve thee, and am 
myself blessed by thy richness. I have been up to the 
seventh heaven, but thou hast seen God." And he fell 
down and kissed Nathan's feet, calling him wisest, and 
greatest, and most favored of men. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS EARLY LIFE, AND EDUCA- 
TION FOR THE MINISTRY 

PREFACE 

The following letter from Mr. Parker to his con- 
gregation has been received within a few days. It 
sufficiently explains itself, and needs no introduction. 
For the information, however, of those who may not 
be familiar with the circumstances which gave rise to 
the other letters which are here printed, it may be well 
to make the following statements : — 

Mr. Parker's health, which had been gradually fail- 
ing for a year or two previous, during the year 1858 
became so much impaired as to excite the serious ap- 
prehensions of his friends. He continued, however, 
though suffering from much illness, to preach regularly 
at the Music Hall — with two intermissions, of several 
weeks each, when positively unable to officiate — up to 
the 2nd of January last, when he delivered a discourse 
entitled " What Religion may do for a Man, a Ser- 
mon for the New Year," which has since been given to 
the public. 

On the following Sunday the congregation assembled 
as usual, expecting to listen to their minister. He did 
not appear, but sent the following note, which was read 
to the audience : — 

Sunday Morning, Jan. 9, 1859. 

TO THE CONGREGATION AT THE MUSIC HALL 

Well-beloved and long-tried Friends, — I shall 
not speak to you to-day ; for this morning, a little after 
275 



276 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

four o'clock, I had a slight attack of bleeding in the 
lungs or throat. I intended to preach on " The Relig- 
ion of Jesus and the Christianity of the Church, or the 
Superiority of Good Will to Man over Theological 
Fancies." 

I hope you will not forget the contribution for the 
poor, whom we have with us always. I don't know 
when I shall again look upon your welcome faces, which 
have so often cheered my spirit when my flesh was weak. 

May we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
our God, and His blessing will be upon us here and 
hereafter, for His infinite love is with us for ever and 
ever. 

Faithfully your friend, 

Theodore Parker. 

The sensation of grief excited by the reading of 
this note as general and profound. Very many eyes 
were dimmed with tears, for although the withdrawal 
of Mr. Parker from his public ministrations had not 
been altogether unanticipated by those who had been 
aware of his feeble state of health for some time pre- 
vious, yet it had been hoped that.no trouble so serious 
as that announced in the note would arise. 

After the reading of the note, a meeting of the 
parish was held, at which, after remarks by several 
gentlemen, it was voted to continue the salary of Mr. 
Parker for one year, at least, with the understanding 
that he would take a respite from all public duties 
for that period, or longer. A vote expressive of the 
deep and heartfelt sympathy of the society with their 
minister was also unanimously passed. 

Mr. Parker was advised by his physicians to leave 
as soon as possible for the West Indies; and accord- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 277 

ingly, after arranging his affairs as if he were not 
to return again, he left Boston for Santa Cruz on 
the 3rd of February. Previous to his departure he 
wrote a brief farewell letter to his congregation, on 
the 27th of January, which was published at the end 
of the New Year's Sermon, and is now reprinted here. 

Meanwhile the letter from the congregation to their 
minister, bearing the date of January 11th, was pre- 
pared, and read at a meeting of the standing com- 
mittee of the society and many others of Mr. Parker's 
friends, held on that day ; and at that time, and within 
a few days subsequent, was signed by about 300 mem- 
bers of the society. This number of signatures might 
easily have been increased tenfold had it been generally 
known that such a letter had been written ; but owing 
to the critical condition of Mr. Parker's health, it was 
deemed advisable to use special precaution to keep it 
from his knowledge, and therefore no public notice 
of the letter was given, and the signatures attached 
to it were privately obtained from such persons as 
were most easily accessible. For the same reason it 
was not considered prudent to apprise Mr. Parker of 
the letter previous to his leaving Boston, and it was 
not until the 6th of March that he received it at 
Santa Cruz. 

The whole correspondence is now published for the 
members of the society, and all others whom it may 
interest. 

Boston, June 10, 1859. 



278 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 



FAREWELL LETTER 

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGREGA- 
TIONAL SOCIETY IN BOSTON 

Much Valued Friends, — When I first found my- 
self unable to speak to you again, and medical men 
bade me be silent, and flee off for my life to a more 
genial clime, I determined, before I went, to make 
ready and publish my New Year's Sermon, the last I 
ever preached; and the one which was to follow it, 
the last I ever wrote, lying there yet unspoken; and 
also to prepare a letter to you, reviewing our past 
intercourse of now nearly fifteen years. 

The phonographer's swift pen made the first work 
easy, and the last sermon lies printed before you ; the 
next I soon laid aside, reserving my forces for the last. 
But, alas ! the thought, and still more the emotion 
requisite for such a letter, under such circumstances, 
are quite too much for me now. So, with much regret, 
I find myself compelled by necessity to forego the at- 
tempt; nay, rather, I trust, only to postpone it for 
a few weeks. 

Now, I can but write this note in parting, to 
thank you for the patience with which you have heard 
me so long; for the open-handed generosity which has 
provided for my unexpected needs ; for the continued 
affection which so many of you have always shown me, 
and now more tenderly than ever ; and yet, above all, for 
the joy it has given me to see the great ideas and emo- 
tions of true religion spring up in your fields with such 
signs of promise. If my labors were to end to-day, 
I should still say, " Lord, now lettest thou thy serv- 
ant depart in peace," for I think few men have seen 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 279 

larger results follow such labors, and so brief. But 
I shall not think our connection is ended, or likely soon 
to be: I hope yet to look in your eyes again, and 
speak to your hearts. So far as my recovery depends 
on me, be assured, dear friends, I shall leave nothing 
undone to effect it; and, so far as it is beyond human 
control, certainly you and I can trust the Infinite 
Parent of us all, without whose beneficent providence 
not even a sparrow falls to the ground ; living here or 
in heaven, we are all equally the children of that un- 
bounded love. 

It has given me great pain that I could not be with 
such of you as have lately suffered bereavements and 
other affliction, and at least speak words of endear- 
ment and sympathy when words of consolation would 
not suffice. 

I know not how long we shall be separated, but, 
while thankful for our past relations, I shall still fer- 
vently pray for your welfare and progress in true 
religion, both as a society, and as individual men and 
women. I know you will still think only too kindly 
of 

Your minister and friend, 

Theodore Paekee. 

Exeter Place, Jan. 27, 1859. 

LETTER TO MR. PARKER 

THE MEMBEES OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGEEGA- 

TIONAL SOCIETY OF BOSTON TO THEIE 

BELOVED MINISTER 

Dear Sir, — It is now many years since you came, 
at the request of some of us, to preach in this city. 
A few men and women, acting under the impulse of 



g80 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

a deep religious need, which the churches of Boston 
at that time failed to satisfy, sought to establish a 
pulpit which should teach a higher idea of religion 
than yet prevailed, and wherein the largest freedom 
of thought and speech should be allowed and respected. 
They asked you to come and stand in such a pulpit, 
thinking that you would meet their demand, and re- 
solving that you should " have a chance to be heard 
in Boston" — a chance which other men were not will- 
ing to allow. At their earnest solicitation you came, 
and the result has shown that they were not mistaken 
in their choice. 

On the formal organization of the society, when 
you were installed as its minister, on the 4th of 
January, 1846, you preached a sermon of " The True 
Idea of a Christian Church." How well and faith- 
fully you have labored from that time till now to make 
that idea a fact, and to build up such a church, we all 
know. From Sunday to Sunday, year after year — 
with rare exceptions, when other duties or necessities 
compelled your absence — you have been at your post, 
and have always discharged the great functions of 
your office in a manner which has left nothing to be 
desired on your part — avoiding no responsibility, 
neglecting no trust, leaving no duty undone, but work- 
ing with an ability, energy, perseverance, and self- 
sacrifice, of which it is not, perhaps, becoming in us 
to speak at length in this place, but which we cannot 
the less admire and approve. Outside of the pulpit, we 
have always found you equally faithful to your re- 
sponsibilities and duties in all the various relations of 
life. 

Nor have your labors and your example been in 
vain. You have taught us to discern between the 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 281 

traditions of men and the living realities of religion ; 
you have brought home to our consciousness great 
truths of the intellect, the conscience, the heart, and 
the soul; you have shown us the infinite perfection of 
God, and the greatness of human nature, inspired us 
with a higher reverence for Him, a deeper trust in 
His universal providence, with a larger faith also in 
man and his capabilities. You have encouraged us to 
oppose all manner of wickedness and oppression, to 
welcome every virtue and humanity, to engage in all 
good works and noble reforms. From the experience 
of mankind, of nations, and of individuals, you have 
drawn great lessons of truth and wisdom for our warn- 
ing or guidance. Above all, your own noble and 
manly and Christian life has been to us a perpetual 
sermon, fuller of wisdom and beauty, more eloquent 
and instructive, even, than the lessons which have fal- 
len from your lips. 

In all our intercourse with you, you have ever been 
to us as a teacher, a friend, and brother, and have 
never assumed to be our master. You have respected 
and encouraged in us that free individuality of thought 
in matters of religion, and all other matters, which you 
have claimed for yourself; you have never imposed 
on us your opinions, asking us to accept them because 
they were yours, but you have always warned us to use 
a wise discretion, and decide according to our own 
judgment and conscience, not according to yours. 
You have not sought to build up a sect, but a free 
Christian community. 

You have indeed been a minister to us, and we feel 
that your ministry has been for our good ; that through 
it we are better prepared to successfully resist those 
temptations and to overcome those evils by which we 



282 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

are surrounded in life, to discharge those obligations 
which devolve upon us as men aiming to be Christians, 
and to acquit ourselves as we ought. 

As we have gathered together from Sunday to 
Sunday, as we have looked into your face, and your 
words have touched our sympathies, and stirred within 
us our deepest and best emotions, as we have come to 
know you better year by year, and to appreciate more 
fully the service which you have been doing for us 
and for other men, and the faithfulness with which 
you have labored in it, we have felt that ours was in- 
deed a blessed privilege ; and we have indulged a 
hope that our lives might testify to the good influence 
of your teachings — a hope which we humbly trust 
has to some extent, at least, been realized. If we have 
failed to approximate that high ideal of excellence 
which you have always set before us, the blame is our 
own, and not yours. 

The world has called us hard names, but it is on 
you that have fallen the hatred, the intolerance, the 
insults, and calumnies of men calling themselves Chris- 
tian. Alas! that they should be so wanting in the 
first principles of that religion which Christ taught 
and lived, and which they pretend to honor and up- 
hold. Of those who have opposed us, many have done 
so through ignorance, misled by the false representa- 
tions of others; some from conscientious motives; 
others from selfishness in many forms. Time has al- 
ready done much to correct this evil with many ; it will 
do more to correct it with others. While the little 
we may have sacrificed on our part has been as noth- 
ing in comparison with all we have gained, from our 
connection with you, as members of this society, on 
yours the sacrifice has been great indeed — not, how- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 283 

ever, without its recompense to you also, we hope and 
trust. 

For all that you have been to us, for all that you 
have done, and borne, and forborne, in our behalf, we 
thank you kindly, cordially, and affectionately. We 
feel that we owe you such gratitude as no words of 
ours can express. If we have not shown it in the past 
by conforming our lives to that high standard of 
morality and piety which you have exemplified in your 
own, let us at least try to do so in the future. 

We cannot but feel a just pride in the success of 
this church; that in spite of all obstacles, it has 
strengthened and increased from year to year, and that 
the circle of its influence has continually widened. 
Thousands of earnest men and women in this and other 
lands, who do not gather with us from week to week, 
look to this church as their " city of refuge ; " their 
sympathies, their convictions, and their hopes coincide 
with our own; they are of us, though not with us. 
Most of them have never listened to your voice, nor 
looked upon your face, but the noble words which 
you have uttered are dear to their hearts, and they 
also bless God for the service which you have done 
for them. 

In all your labors for us and for others, we have 
only one thing to regret, and that is, that you have 
not spared yourself, but have sacrificed your health 
and strength to an extent which, of- late, has excited 
our deepest solicitude and apprehension. We thank 
God that he furnished you with a vigorous consti- 
tution, which has stood the test of so many years of 
incessant and unwearied toil in so many departments 
of usefulness, and which has enabled you to accom- 
plish so much as you have already done; but there is 



284 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

a limit to the endurance of even the strongest man, 
and the frequent warnings which you have received 
within the past year or two would seem to indicate 
that nature will not suffer even the best of her children 
to transgress the great laws which she has established 
for their observance, without inflicting the penalty of 
disobedience, even though they are engaged in the 
highest and holiest service which man can render unto 
man. We would not presume to instruct you in 
this matter; we only repeat what you have yourself 
often taught us. 

A warning now comes of so imperative a nature 
that it cannot be disregarded. 

We need not assure you that the note from you 
which was read at the Music Hall on Sunday morning 
last, was listened to by us with the most sincere and 
heartfelt sorrow — sorrow, however, not unmingled 
with hope. While we feel the deepest and warmest 
sympathy for you under the new and serious develop- 
ment of the disease from which your are suffering, we 
yet trust that it is not too late to arrest its progress, 
and that, in some more genial clime than ours, relieved 
from the cares and responsibilities which have borne 
heavily upon you for so many years, you may regain 
that soundness of health which shall enable you to 
resume, at some future day, the great work to which 
you have devoted your life. 

We know with how much reluctance it is that you 
feel compelled to suspend your labor among us at this 
time; but there is the less cause for regret on your 
part, inasmuch as you have, by the services you have 
already rendered to mankind, far more than earned 
the right to do so, even if the necessity did not exist. 

Whether it is for a longer or a shorter period that 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 285 

you will be separated from us, of course none of us 
can tell. In any event, God's will be done ! and at all 
times, wherever you may be, you will have our deep- 
est veneration and regard. 

Waiting for that happier day when we shall again 
take you by the hand, and again listen to your wel- 
come voice, we remain, 

Your faithful and loving friends, 

(In behalf of the Twenty-eighth Congregational 
Society), 

Samuel May, John Flint, 

Mary May, William Dall, 

Thomas Goddard, John R. Manley, 

Francis Jackson, And three hundred others. 
Boston, Jan. 11, 1859. 

REPLY OF MR. PARKER 

Fredericksted, Santa Cruz, May 9, 1859. 

To Samuel May, Mary May, Thomas Goddard, 
Francis Jackson, John Flint, William Dall, John 
R. Manley, and the other signers of the letter to 
me, dated Boston, Jan. 11, 1859. 

Dear Friends, — Your genial and most welcome 
letter was handed to me at this place the 6th of March ; 
I had not strength before to bear the excitement it 
must occasion. It was Sunday morning; and while 
you were at the Music Hall, I read it in this little 
far-off island, with emotions you may imagine easier 
than I can relate. It brought back the times of trial 
we have had together, and your many kindnesses to 
me. I can easily bear to be opposed, and that with 
the greatest amount of abuse ; for habit makes all 
things familiar. I fear it flatters my pride a little. 



286 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

to be greatly underrated; but to be appreciated so 
tenderly by your affection, and rated so much above 
my own deservings, it makes me ashamed that I am 
no more worthy of your esteem and praise: 

" I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds 
With coldness still returning; 
Alas! the gratitude of men 

Hath of tener left me mourning ! " 

Herewith I send you, and all the members of the 
society, a long letter, reviewing my life, and especially 
my connection with you. I began to compose it before 
I knew of your letter to me, before I left Boston, in- 
deed, in sleepless nights ; but wrote nothing till I 
was fixed in this place, and then only little by little, 
as I had strength for the work. I finished it April 
19th, and so date it that day. The fair copy sent you 
is made by my wife and Miss Stevenson, and of course 
was finished much later. I have had no safe oppor- 
tunity of sending it direct to you till now, when Miss 
Thacher, one of our townswomen, returning hence to 
Boston, kindly offers to take charge of it. If this 
copy does not reach you I shall forward another from 
Europe. 

The letter would have been quite different, no doubt, 
in plan and execution, better, I hope, in thought and 
language, had I been sound and well; for all a sick 
man's work seems likely to be infected with his illness. 
I beg you to forgive its imperfections, and be as gen- 
tle in your judgment as fairness will allow. 

Though I have been reasonably industrious all my 
life, when I come to look over what I have actually 
done, it seems very little in comparison with the op- 
portunities I have had; only the beginning of what 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 287 

I intended to accomplish. But it is idle to make ex- 
cuses now, and not profitable to complain. 

As that letter is intended for all the members of 
the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, I beg you 
to transit it to the Standing Committee — I know not 
their names — who will lay it before them in some 
suitable manner. 

With thanks for the past, and hearty good wishes^ 
for your future welfare, believe me. 

Faithfully your minister and friend, 

Theodore Paekee. 

Fredericksted, Santa Cruz, May 9, 1859. 

TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF THE TWENTY-EIGHTH 
CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETY IN BOSTON 

Gentlemen and Ladies, — Here is a letter ad- 
dressed to the members of your society. I beg you to 
lay it before them in such a manner as you may see 
most fit. Believe me. 

Faithfully your minister and friend, 

Theodore Parker. 

LETTER 

to the members of the twenty-eighth congrega- 
tional SOCIETY OF BOSTON 

My dear and valued Friends, — After it became 
needful that I should be silent, and flee off from my 
home, I determined, at least, before I went, to write you 
a letter touching our long connection, and my efforts 
in your service, and so bid you farewell. But the ex- 
perienced doctors and other wise friends forbade the un- 
dertaking, and directed me to wait for a more favorable 



^88 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

time, when the work might be more leisurely and better 
done, with less risk also to my life; promising indeed 
a time when it would not diminish the chances of re- 
covery. In the twenty-four days which came between 
the sudden, decisive attack, and my departure from 
Boston, there was little time for even a sound, well 
man to settle and arrange his worldly affairs, to 
straighten out complicated matters, and return thanks 
to the many that have befriended him in the difficult 
emergencies of life — for surely I left home as 
one not to set eyes on New England again. Since 
then there has been no time till now when I have had 
strength to endure the intellectual labor, and still more 
the emotional agitation, which must attend such a re- 
view of my past life. Consumption, having long 
since slain almost all my near kinsfolk, horsed on the 
north wind, rode at me also, seeking my life. Swiftly 
I fled hither, hoping in this little quiet and fair-skied 
Island of the Holy Cross to hide me from his monstrous 
sight, to pull his arrows from my flesh, and heal my 
wounded side. It is yet too soon to conjecture how or 
when my exile shall end; but at home, wise, friendly, 
and hopeful doctors told me I had " but one chance 
in ten " for complete recovery, though more for a par- 
tial restoration to some small show of health, I sup- 
pose, and power of moderate work. But if the danger 
be as they say, I do not despair nor lose heart at such 
odds, having often in my life contended against much 
greater, and come off triumphant, though the chances 
against me were a hundred or a thousand to one. Be- 
sides, this is now the third time that I remember friends 
and doctors despairing of my life. Still, I know that 
I am no longer young, and that I stand up to my 
shoulders in my grave, whose uncertain sides at any 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 289 

moment may cave in and bury me with their resistless 
weight. Yet I hope to climb out this side, and live and 
work again amid laborious New England men; for, 
though the flesh be weak and the spirit resigned to 
either fate, yet still the will to live, though reverent 
and submissive, is exceeding strong, more vehement 
than ever before, as I have still much to do — some 
things to begin upon, and many more lying now half 
done, that I alone can finish — and I should not like to 
suffer the little I have done to perish now for lack of 
a few years' work. 

I know well both the despondency of sick men that 
makes the night seem darker than it is, and also the 
pleasing illusion which flits before consumptive pa- 
tients, and while this will-o'-the-wisp comes flickering 
from their kindred's grave, they think it is the break- 
ing of a new and more auspicious day. So indeed it 
is, the dayspring from on high, revealing the white, 
tall porches of eternity. Let you and me be neither 
cheated by delusive hopes, nor weakened by unmanly 
fears, but, looking the facts fairly in the face, let us 
meet the inevitable with calmness and pious joy, sing- 
ing the wealthy psalm of life : — 

" Give to the winds thy fears ; 
Hope and be undismayed! 
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears, 
God shall lift up thy head! 

Though comprehended not, 

Yet Earth and Heaven tell. 
He sits a Father on the throne; 

God guideth all things well ! " 

But while my strength is but weakness, and my time 

for this letter so uncertain, I will waste neither in a 

lengthened introduction, knowing " it were a foolish 
XII— la 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

thing to make a long prologue, and be short in the 
story itself." 

In this letter I must needs speak much of myself, 
and tell some things which seem to belong only to my 
private history ; for without a knowledge of them, my 
public conduct might appear other than it really is. 
Yet I would gladly defer them to a more fitting place, 
in some brief autobiography to be published after my 
death; but I am not certain of time to prepare that, 
so shall here, in small compass, briefly sketch out some 
small personal particulars which might elsewhere be 
presented in their full proportions, and with appro- 
priate light and shade. As this letter is confidential 
and addressed to you, I could wish it might be read 
only to the members of the Twenty-eighth Congrega- 
tional Society, or printed solely for their aff^ection, not 
also published for the eye of the world; but that were 
impossible, for what is offered to the hearts of so many, 
thereby becomes accessible to the eyes and ears of all 
who wish to see and hear; so what I write private to 
you, becomes public also for mankind, whether I will 
or not. 

In my early boyhood I felt 1 was to be a minister, 
and looked forward with eager longings for the work 
to which I still think my nature itself an " effec- 
tual call," certainly a deep one and a continuous. Few 
men have ever been more fortunate than I in having 
pains judiciously taken with their intellectual culture. 

My early education was not costly, as men count 
expense by dollars ; it was exceeding precious, as they 
might reckon outlay by the fitness of the process to 
secure a development of natural powers. By father 
and mother, yes, even by brothers and sisters, great 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 291 

and unceasing' care was taken to secure power of 
observation, that the senses might grasp their natural 
objects; of voluntary attention, fixed, continuous, and 
€xact, which, despite of appearances, sees the fact just 
as it is, no more, no less; of memory, that holds all 
things firm as gravitation, and yet, like that, keeps 
them unmixed, not confusing the most delicate out- 
line, and reproduces them at will, complete in the whole, 
and perfect in each part; much stress was also laid on 
judgment and inventive imagination. It was a great 
game they set me to play; it was also an advantage 
that the counters cost little money, but were common 
things, picked up daily on a farm, in a kitchen, or a 
mechanic's thoughtful shop. But still more pains were 
taken with my moral and religious culture. In my 
earlist boyhood I was taught to respect the Instinctive 
promptings of conscience, regarding it as the " voice 
of God in the soul of man," which must always be 
obeyed ; to speak the truth without evasion or conceal- 
ment; to love justice and conform to it; to reverence 
merit in all men, and that regardless of their rank or 
reputation ; and, above all things, I was taught to love 
and trust the dear God. He was not presented to me 
as a great king, with force for His chief quality, but 
rather as a father, eminent for perfect justice, and 
complete and perfect love, alike the parent of Jew 
and Gentile, Christian and non-Christian, dealing with 
all, not according to the accident of their name and 
situation, but to the real use each should make of his 
talents and opportunities, however little or great. I 
was taught self-reliance, intellectual, moral, and of 
many another form ; to investigate all things with my 
own eyes; carefully to form opinions for myself, and 
while I believed them reasonable and just, to hold and 



292 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

defend them with modest firmness. Inquiry was en^ 
couraged in all directions. 

Of course I took in many of the absurd theological 
opinions of the time ; but I think few New Englanders 
born of religious families in the first ten years of this 
century, were formally taught so little superstition. I 
have met none with whom more judicious attempts were 
made to produce a natural unfolding of the religious 
and moral faculties ; I do not speak of results, only of 
aim and process. I have often been praised for vir- 
tues which really belonged to my father and mother, 
and if they were also mine, they must have come so 
easy under such training, that I should feel entitled to 
but small merit for possessing them. They made a 
careful distinction between a man's character and his 
creed, and in my hearing never spoke a bigoted or 
irreverent word. 

As my relatives and neighbors were all hard-working 
people, living in one of the most laborious communi- 
ties in the world, I did not fail to learn the great lesson 
of personal industry, and to acquire power of work — 
to begin early, to continue long, with strong and rapid 
stroke. The discipline and habit of bodily toil were 
quite easily transferred to thought, and I learned early 
to apply my mind with exact, active, and long-con- 
tinued attention, which outward things did not dis- 
turb; so, while working skilfully with my hands, I 
could yet think on what I would. 

Good books by great masters fell into even my boy- 
ish hands ; the best English authors of prose and verse, 
the Bible, the Greek and Roman classics — which I at 
first read mainly in translations, but soon became fa- 
miliar with in their original beauty; these were my 
literary helps. What was read at all, was also studied, 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER ^9S 

and not laid aside till well understood. If my books 
in boyhood were not many, they were much, and also 
great. 

I had an original fondness for scientific and meta- 
physical thought, which found happy encouragement 
in my early days ; my father's strong, discriminating, 
and comprehensive mind also inclining that way, of- 
fered me an excellent help. Nature was all about me ; 
my attention was wisely directed to both use and 
beauty, and I early became familiar with the flora of 
New England, and attentive also to the habits of beast 
and bird, insect, reptile, fish. A few scientific works 
on natural history gave me their stimulus and their 
help.^ 

After my general preliminary education was pretty 
well advanced, the hour came when I must decide on 
my profession for life. All about me there were min- 
isters who had sufficient talents ; now and then one ad- 
mirably endowed with learning; devout and humane 
men, also, with no stain on their personal character. 
But I did not see much in their clerical profession to 
attract me thither ; the notorious dulness of the Sunday 
services, their mechanical character, the poverty and 
insignificance of the sermons, the unnaturalness and 
uncertainty of the doctrines preached on the authority 
of a " divine and infallible revelation," the lifeless- 
ness of the public prayers, and the consequent heed- 
lessness of the congregation, all tended to turn a young 
man off from becoming a minister. Besides, it did not 
appear that the New England clergy were leaders in 
the intellectual, moral, or religious progress of the 
people ; if they tried to seem so, it was only the appear- 
ance which was kept up. " Do you think our minis- 
ter would dare tell his audience of their actual faults? '^ 



^94 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

— so a rough blacksmith once asked me In my youth. 
*' Certainly I do ! " was the boyish answer. 
" Humph ! " rej oined the smith, " I should like to have 
him begin, then ! " The genius of Emerson soon 
moved from the clerical constellation, and stood forth 
alone, a fixed and solitary star. Dr. Channing was 
the only man in the New England pulpit who to me 
seemed great. All my friends advised me against the 
ministry — it was " a narrow place, affording no op- 
portunity to do much ! " I thought it a wide place. 
The legal profession seemed to have many attrac- 
tions. There were eminent men in its ranks, rising to 
pubHc honors, judicial or political; they seemed to 
have more freedom and individuality than the minis- 
ters. For some time I hesitated, inclined that way, 
and made preliminary studies in the law. But at 
length the perils of that profession seemed greater 
than I cared to rush upon. Mistaking sound for 
sense, I thought the lawyer's moral tone was lower than 
the minister's, and dared not put myself under that 
temptation I prayed God not to lead me into. I could 
not make up my mind to defend a cause I knew to 
be wrong, using all my efforts to lead judge or jury 
to a decision I thought unjust. A powerful and suc- 
cessful practitioner told me " none could be a lawyer 
without doing so," and quoted the well-known words 
of Lord Brougham. I saw men of large talents yield- 
ing to this temptation, and counting as great success 
what to me even then seemed only great ruin. I could 
not decide to set up a law-mill beside the public road, 
to put my hand on the winch, and by turning one way, 
rob innocent men of their property, liberty, life ; or, 
by reversing the motion, withdraw the guilty from 
just punishment, pecuniary or corporeal. Though I 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 295 

hesitated some time, soon as I got clearness of sight, 
I returned to my first love, for that seemed free from 
guile. I then asked myself these three questions : — 

1. " Can you seek for what is eternally true, and 
not be blinded by the opinions of any sect, or of the 
Christian Church; and can you tell that truth you 
learn, even when it is unpopular and hated? " I an- 
swered, " / can! " Rash youth is ever confident. 

2. " Can you seek the eternal right, and not be 
blinded by the statutes and customs of men, ecclesias- 
tical, political, and social; and can you declare that 
eternal right you discover, applying it to the actual 
life of man, individual and associated, though it bring 
you into painful relations with men ? " Again I swift- 
ly answered, " / c«7i." 

3. " Can you represent in your life that truth of the 
intellect and that right of the conscience, and so not 
disgrace with your character what you preach with 
your lips ? " I doubted of this more than the others ; 
the temptation to personal wickedness seemed stronger 
than that to professional deceit — at least it was then 
better known ; but I answered, " / can try, and will! " 

Alas ! I little knew all that was involved in these 
three questions, and their prompt, youthful answers. 
I understand it better now. 

So I determined to become a minister, hoping to 
help mankind in the most important of all human con- 
cerns, the development of man's highest powers. 

Zealously I entered on my theological education, 
with many ill-defined doubts, and some distinct denials, 
of the chief doctrines of the ecclesiastical theology of 
Christendom. 

1. In my early childhood, after a severe but silent 



296 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

struggle, I made way with the ghastly doctrine of eter- 
nal damnation and a wrathful God; this is the Goliath 
of that theology. From my seventh year I have had 
no fear of God, only an ever-greatening love and trust. 

2. The doctrine of the Trinity, the " great mystery 
of Revelation," had long since gone the same road. 
For a year, though born and bred among Unitarians, 
I had attended the preachings of Dr. Lyman Beecher, 
the most powerful orthodox minister in New England, 
then in the full blaze of his talents and reputation, and 
stirred also with polemic zeal against " Unitarians, 
Universalists, Papists, and Infidels." I went through 
one of his " protracted meetings," listening to the fiery 
words of excited men, and hearing the most frightful 
doctrines set forth in sermon, song, and prayer. I 
greatly respected the talents, the zeal, and the enter- 
prise of that able man, who certainly taught me much, 
but I came away with no confidence in his theology; 
the better I understood it, the more self-contradictory, 
unnatural, and hateful did it seem. A year of his 
preaching about finished all my respect for the Calvin- 
istic scheme of theology.^ 

3. I had found no evidence which to me could au- 
thorize a belief in the supernatural birth of Jesus of 
Nazareth. The twofold Biblical testimony was all; 
that was contradictory and good for nothing; we had 
not the affidavit of the mother, the only competent 
human witness, nor even the declaration of the son; 
there was no circumstantial evidence to confirm the 
statement in the Gospels of a most improbable event. 

4. Many miracles related in the Old and New Testa- 
ment seemed incredible to me; some were clearly im- 
possible, others ridiculous, and a few were wicked; 
such, of course, I rejected at once, while I still arbi- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 297 

trarily admitted others. The general question of mir- 
acles was one which gave me much uneasiness, for I 
had not learned carefully to examine evidence for al- 
leged historical events, and had, besides, no clear con- 
ception of what is involved in the notion that God ever 
violates the else constant mode of operation of the 
universe. Of course I had not then that philosophical 
idea of God which makes a theological miracle as im- 
possible as a round triangle, or any other self-evident 
contradiction. 

5. I had no belief in the plenary, infallible, verbal 
inspiration of the whole Bible, and strong doubts as to 
the miraculous Inspiration of any part of it. Some 
things were the opposite of divine; I could not put 
my finger on any great moral or religious truth taught 
by revelation In the New Testament, which had not 
previously been set forth by men for whom no miracu- 
lous help was ever claimed. But, on the whole matter 
of inspiration, I lacked clear and definite Ideas, and 
found neither friend nor book to help me. 

In due time I entered the Theological School at 
Cambridge, then under the charge of the Unitarians, 
or " Liberal Christians." I found excellent oppor- 
tunities for study: there were able and earnest pro- 
fessors, who laid no yoke on any neck, but left each 
man free to think for himself, and come to such con- 
clusions as he must. Telling what they thought they 
knew, they never pretended they had learned all that 
may be known, or winnowed out all error from their 
creed. They were honest guides, with no more sophis- 
try than is perhaps almost universal in that calling, 
and did not pretend to be masters.^ There, too, was 
a large library containing much valuable ancient lore, 



^98 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

though, alas ! almost none of the new theologic thought 
of the German masters. Besides, there was leisure, 
and unbounded freedom of research ; and I could work 
as many hours in the study as a mechanic in his shop, 
or a farmer in his field. The pulpits of Boston were 
within an easy walk, and Dr. Channing drew near the 
zenith of his power. 

Here, under these influences, I pursued the usual 
routine of theological reading, but yet, of course, had 
my own private studies, suited to my special wants. 
It is now easy to tell what I then attempted without 
always being conscious of my aim, and what results 
I gradually reached before I settled in the ministry. 

I. I studied the Bible with much care. First, I 
wished to learn. What is the Bible — what books and 
words compose it.^^ this is the question of criticism; 
next. What does the Bible mean — what sentiments 
and ideas do its words contain? this is the question of 
interpretation. I read the Bible critically, in its orig- 
inal tongues, the most important parts of it also in 
the early versions, and sought for the meaning early 
attributed to its words, and so studied the works of 
Jewish rabbis on the Old Testament, and of the early 
Christian Fathers on both New and Old; besides, I 
studied carefully the latest critics and interpreters, es- 
pecially the German. 

I soon found that the Bible is a collection of quite 
heterogeneous books, most of them anonymous, or 
bearing names of doubtful authors, collected none 
knows how, or when, or by whom ; united more by 
caprice than any philosophic or historic method, so 
that it is not easy to see why one ancient book is kept 
in the canon and another kept out. I found no unity 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 299 

of doctrine in the several parts ; the Old Testament 
" reveals " one form of religion, and the New Testa- 
ment one directly its opposite; and in the New Testa- 
ment itself 5 1 found each writer had his own individual- 
ity, which appears not only in the style, the form of 
thought, but quite as much in the doctrines, the sub- 
stance of thought, where no two are well agreed. 

Connected with this Biblical study, came the ques- 
tion of inspiration and of miracles. I still inconsist- 
ently believed, or half believed, in the direct miraculous 
interposition of God, from time to time, to set things 
right which else went wrong, though I found no his- 
toric or philosophic reason for limiting it to the affairs 
of Jews and Christians, or the early ages of the 
Church. The whole matter of miracles was still a puz- 
zle to me, and for a long time a source of anxiety ; for 
I had not studied the principles of historic evidence, 
nor learned to identify and scrutinize the witnesses. 
But the problem of inspiration got sooner solved. I 
believed in the immanence of God in man, as well as 
matter. His activity in both; hence, that all men are 
inspired in proportion to their actual powers, and their 
normal use thereof ; that truth is the test of intellectual 
inspiration, justice of moral, and so on. I did not find 
the Bible inspired, except in this general way, and in 
proportion to the truth and justice therein. It seemed 
to me that no part of the Old Testament or New could 
be called the " Word of God," save in the sense that 
all truth is God's word. 

II. I studied the historical development of religion 
and theology amongst Jews and Christians, and saw 
the gradual formation of the great ecclesiastical doc- 
trines which so domineered over the world. As I found 
the Bible was the work of men, so I also found that 



300 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

the Christian Church was no more divine than the 
British State, a Dutchman's shop, or an Austrian's 
farm. The miraculous, infalHble Bible, and the mi- 
raculous, infallible Church, disappeared when thej 
were closely looked at ; and I found the fact of history 
quite different from the pretension of theology. 

III. I studied the historical development of religion 
and theology amongst the nations not Jewish or Chris- 
tian, and attended as well as I then could to the four 
other great religious sects — the Brahmanic, the 
Buddhistic, the Classic, and the Mahometan. As far 
as possible at that time, I studied the sacred books of 
mankind in their original tongues, and with the help of 
the most faithful interpreters. Here the Greek and 
Roman poets and philosophers came in for their place, 
there being no sacred books of the classic nations. I 
attended pretty carefully to the religion of savages 
and barbarians, and was thereby helped to the solution 
of many a difficult problem. I found no tribe of men 
destitute of religion who had attained power of articu- 
late speech. 

IV. I studied assiduously the metaphysics and psy- 
chology of religion. Religious consciousness was uni- 
versal in human history. Was it then natural to man, 
inseparable from his essence, and so from his develop- 
ment? In my own consciousness I found it automatic 
and indispensable ; was it really so likewise in the hu- 
man race.'' The authority of Bibles and Churches 
was no answer to that question. I tried to make 
an analysis of humanity, and see if by psychologic 
science I could detect the special element which 
produced religious consciousness in me, and reli- 
gious phenomena in mankind — seeking a cause 
adequate to the facts of experience and observation. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 301 

The common books of philosophy seemed quite insuffi- 
cient; the sensational system so ably presented by 
Locke in his masterly Essay, developed into various 
forms by Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Paley, and the 
French Materialists, and modified, but not much mend- 
ed, by Reid and Stewart, gave little help ; it could not 
legitimate my own religious instincts, nor explain the 
religious history of mankind, or even of the British 
people, to whom that philosophy is still so manifold a 
hindrance. Ecclesiastical writers, though able as 
Clarke and Butler, and learned also as Cudworth and 
Barrow, could not solve the difficulty ; for the principle 
of authority, though more or less concealed, yet lay 
there, and, like buried iron, disturbed the free action 
of their magnetic genius, affecting its dip and inclina- 
tion. The brilliant mosaic, which Cousin set before 
the world, was of great service, but not satisfactory. 
I found most help in the works of Immanuel Kant, one 
of the profoundest thinkers in the world, though one 
of the worst writers, even of Germany; if he did not 
always furnish conclusions I could rest in, he yet gave 
me the true method, and put me on the right road. 

I found certain great primal intuitions of human 
nature, which depend on no logical process of demon- 
stration, but are rather facts of consciousness given 
by the instinctive action of human nature itself. I 
will mention only the three most important which per- 
tain to religion. 

1. The instinctive intuition of the divine, the con- 
ciousness that there is a God. 

2. The instinctive intuition of the just and right, a 
consciousness that there is a moral law, independent 
of our will, which we ought to keep. 

3. The instinctive intuition of the immortal, a con- 



802 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

sclousness that the essential element of man, the prin- 
ciple of individuality, never dies. 

Here, then, was the foundation of religion, laid in 
human nature itself, which neither the atheist nor the 
more pernicious bigot, with their sophisms of denial 
or affirmation, could move, or even shake. I had gone 
through the great spiritual trial of my life, telling 
no one of Its hopes or fears ; and I thought It a tri- 
umph that I had psychologically established these 
three things to my own satisfaction, and devised a 
scheme which to the scholar's mind, I thought, could 
legitimate what was spontaneously given to all, by the 
great primal instincts of mankind. 

Then I proceeded to develop the contents of these 
instinctive intuitions of the divine, the just, and the 
immortal, and see what God actually is, what morality 
is, and what eternal life has to offer. In each case I 
pursued two methods — the inductive and deductive. 

First, from the history of mankind — savage, bar- 
barous, civilized, enlightened — I gathered the most 
significant facts I could find relating to men's opinions 
about God, morality, heaven, and hell, and thence made 
such generalizations as the facts would warrant, which, 
however, were seldom satisfactory ; for they did not 
represent facts of the universe, the actual God, jus- 
tice, and eternal life, but only what men had thought 
or felt thereof; yet this comparative and inductive 
theology was of great value to me. 

Next, from the primitive facts of consciousness, 
given by the power of instinctive intuition, I endeav- 
ored to deduce the true notion of God, of justice, and 
futurity. Here I could draw from human nature, and 
not be hindered by the limitations of human history; 
but I know now better than it was possible then, how 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 303 

difficult is this work, and how often the inquirer mis- 
takes his own subjective imagination for a fact of the 
universe. It is for others to decide whether I have 
sometimes mistaken a little grain of brilliant dust in 
my telescope for a fixed star in heaven. 

To learn what I could about the spiritual faculties 
of man, I not only studied the sacred books of various 
nations, the poets and the philosophers who professedly 
treat thereof, but also such as deal with sleep-walking, 
dreams, visions, prophecies, second-sight, oracles, ec- 
stacies, witch-craft, magic, wonders, the appearance of 
devils, ghosts, and the like. Besides, I studied other 
works which lie out from the regular highway of theol- 
ogy, the spurious books attributed to famous Jews or 
Christians, the pseudepigraphy of the Old Testament, 
and the Apocrypha of the New, with the strange 
fantasies of the Neoplatonists and Gnostics. I did not 
neglect the writings of the Mystics, though at that 
time I could only make a beginning with the more 
famous or most tenderly religious ; I was much attract- 
ed to this class of men, who developed the element of 
piety, regardless of the theologic ritualism of the 
Church, the philosophic discipline of the schools, or the 
practical morality of common life. By this process, 
I not only learned much of the abnormal action of the 
human spirit, and saw how often a mere fancy passes 
for fact, and a dreamer's subjective whim bestrides 
some great harbor of the world for a thousand years, 
obstructing all tall ships, until an earthquake throws 
it down ; but I also gleaned up many a precious flower 
which bloomed unseen in those waste places of litera- 
ture, and was unknown to the authorized floras of the 
school or Church. 



304 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

I left the Theological School with reluctance, con- 
scious of knowing so little of what I must presently 
teach, and wishing more years for research and 
thought. Of course my first sermons were only imita- 
tions ; and even if the thought might, perhaps, be orig- 
inal, the form was old, the stereotype of the pulpit. I 
preached with fear and trembling, and wondered that 
old and mature persons, rich in the experience of life, 
should listen to a young man, who might, indeed, have 
read and thought, but yet had had no time to live 
much and know things by heart. I took all possible 
pains with the matter of the discourse, and always ap- 
pealed to the religious instinct in mankind. At the 
beginning I resolved to preach the natural laws of 
man as they are writ in his constitution, no less and no 
more. After preaching a few months in various 
places, and feeling my way into the consciousness of 
men, I determined to preach nothing as religion which 
I had not experienced inwardly, and made my own, 
knowing it by heart. Thus, not only the intellectual, 
but also the religious part of my sermons would rest 
on facts that I was sure of, and not on the words of 
another. I was indebted to another young candidate 
for the hint. I hope I have not been faithless to the 
early vow. A study of the English State Trials, and 
a careful analysis of the arguments of the great 
speeches therein, helped me to clearness of arrange- 
ment, and distinctness in the use of terms. Here and 
in the Greek and Latin orations I got the best part of 
my rhetorical culture. 

On the longest day of 1837, I was ordained minister 
of the Unitarian Church and Congregation at West 
Roxbury, a little village near Boston, one of the small- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER S05 

est societies in New England, where I found men and 
women whose friendship is still dear and instructive. 
I had thought freely, and freely preached what I 
thought; none had ever questioned my right. At the 
Theological School, the professors were then teachers 
to instruct, not also inquisitors to torture and to damn ; 
satisfied of the religious character of the pupils, they 
left each to develop his own free spiritual individual- 
ity, responsible only to his own conscience and his God. 
It was then the boast of the little Unitarian party that 
it respected individuality, freedom of thought, and 
freedom of speech, and had neither inquisitors nor 
pope. Great diversity of opinion prevailed amongst 
Unitarians, ministers and laymen, but the unity of re- 
ligion was more thought of than the variety of theol- 
ogy. At ordinations, for some years, their councils 
had ceased to inquire into the special opinions of the 
candidate, leaving him and the society electing to settle 
the matter. The first principle of Congregationalism 
certainly requires this course. As a sect, the Unita- 
rians had but one distinctive doctrine — the unity of 
God without the Trinity of Persons. Christendom 
said, " Jesus of Nazareth is Jehovah of Hosts ! " The 
Unitarians answered, " He is not ! " At my ordina- 
tion, none of the council offered to catechise me, or 
wished to interfere with what belonged to me and the 
congregation, and they probably thought of my piety 
and morality more than of the special theology which 
even then rode therewith in the same panniers. The 
able and earnest ministers who preached the sermon, 
delivered the charge, and gave me the right hand of 
fellowship, all recommended study, investigation, orig- 
inality, freedom of thought and openness of speech, 
as well as humanity, and a life of personal religious- 
XII— 20 



S06 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

ness. One, in his ordaining prayer, his hand on my 
head, put up the petition, " that no fondness for Ht- 
erature or science, and no favorite studies, may ever 
lead this young man from learning the true religion, 
and preaching it for the salvation of mankind ! " 
Most heartily did I say " Amen ! " to this supplica- 
tion. 

For the first year or two the congregation did not 
exceed seventy persons, including the children. I soon 
became well acquainted with all in the little parish, 
where I found some men of rare enlightenment, some 
truly generous and noble souls. I knew the charac- 
ters of all, and the thoughts of such as had them. 
I took great pains with the composition of my ser- 
mons ; they were never out of my mind. I had an 
intense delight in writing and preaching; but I was 
a learner quite as much as a teacher, and was feeling 
my way forward and upward with one hand, while I 
tried to lead men with the other. I preached natural 
laws, nothing on the authority of any church, any tra- 
dition, any sect, though I sought illustration and con- 
firmation from all these sources. For historical things, 
I told the historical evidence; for spiritual things, I 
found ready proof in the primal instincts of the soul, 
and confirmation in the life of religious men. The 
simple life of the farmers, mechanics, and milk-men, 
about me, of its own accord, turned into a sort of 
poetry, and reappeared in the sermons, as the green 
woods, not far off, looked in at the windows of the 
meeting-house. I think I preached only what I had 
experienced in my own inward consciousness, which 
widened and grew richer as I came into practical con- 
tact with living men, turned time into life, and mere 
thought became character. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 307 

But I had much leisure for my private humanitarian 
and philosophic studies. One of the professors in the 
Theological School had advised against my settling 
*' in so small a place," and warned me against " the 
seductions of an easy-chair," telling me I must become 
a " minister at large for all mankind," and do with 
the pen what I could not with the voice. I devoted 
my spare time to hard study. To work ten or fifteen 
hours a day in my literary labors, was not only a habit, 
but a pleasure ; with zeal and delight I applied myself 
anew to the great theological problems of the age. 

Many circumstances favored both studious pursuits 
and the formation of an independent character. The 
years of my preliminary theological study, and of my 
early ministry, fell in the most interesting period of 
New England's spiritual history, when a great revolu- 
tion went on — so silent that few men knew it was tak- 
ing place, and none then understood its whither or its 
whence. 

The Unitarians, after a long and bitter controversy, 
in which they were often shamelessly ill-treated by the 
" orthodox," had conquered, and secured their ec- 
clesiastical right to deny the Trinity, " the Achilles of 
dogmas ; " they had won the respect of the New Eng- 
land public ; had absorbed most of the religious talent 
of Massachusetts, founded many churches, and pos- 
sessed and liberally administered the oldest and richest 
college in America. Not yet petrified into a sect, they 
rejoiced in the large liberty of " the children of God," 
and, owning neither racks nor dungeons, did not covet 
any of those things that were their neighbors'. With 
less education and literary skill, the Universalists had 
fought manfully against eternal damnation — the foul- 



308 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

est doctrine which defiles the pages of man's theologic 
history — secured their ecclesiastical position, wiping 
malignant statutes from the law books, and, though 
in a poor and vulgar way, were popularizing the great 
truth that God's chief attribute is love, which is ex- 
tended to all men. Alone of all Christian sects, they 
professedly taught the immortality of man in such a 
form that it is no curse to the race to find it true. 
But, though departing from those doctrines which are 
essential to the Christian ecclesiastic scheme, neither 
Universalist nor Unitarian had broken with the author- 
ity of revelation, the word of the Bible, but still pro- 
fessed a willingness to believe both Trinity and damna- 
tion, could they be found in the miraculous and in- 
fallible Scripture. 

Mr. Garrison, with his friends, inheriting what was 
best in the Puritan founders of New England, fired 
with the zeal of the Hebrew prophets and Christian 
martyrs, while they were animated with a spirit of 
humanity rarely found in any of the three, was be- 
ginning his noble work, but in a style so humble that, 
after much search, the police of Boston discovered 
there was nothing dangerous in it, for " his only visible 
auxiliary was a negro boy." Dr. Channing was in the 
full maturity of his powers, and after long preaching 
the dignity of man as an abstraction, and piety 
as a purely inward life, with rare and winsome elo- 
quence, and ever progressive humanity, began to apply 
his sublime doctrines to actual life in the individual, 
the State, and the Church. In the name of Christian- 
ity, the great American Unitarian called for the reform 
of the drunkard, the elevation of the poor, the instruc- 
tion of the ignorant, and, above all, for the liberation 
of the American slave. A remarkable man, his instinct 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 309 

of progress grew stronger the more he traveled and the 
further he went, for he surrounded himself with young 
life. Horace Mann, with his coadjutors, began a 
great movement, to improve the pubHc education of 
the people. Pierpont, single-handed, was fighting a 
grand and twofold battle — against drunkenness in the 
street, and for righteousness in the pulpit — against 
fearful ecKilesiastic odds, maintaining a minister's right 
and duty to oppose actual wickedness, however popular 
and destructive. The brilliant genius of Emerson rose 
in the winter nights, and hung over Boston, drawing 
the eyes of ingenuous young people to look up to that 
great, new star, a beauty and a mystery, which charmed 
for the moment, while it gave also perennial inspira- 
tion, as it led them forward along new paths, and to- 
ward new hopes. America had seen no such sight be- 
fore ; it is not less a blessed wonder now. 

Besides, the phrenologists, so ably represented by 
Spurzheim and Combe, were weakening the power of 
the old supernaturalism, leading men to study the con- 
stitution of man more wisely than before, and laying 
the foundation on which many a beneficent structure 
was soon to rise. The writings of Wordsworth were 
becoming familiar to the thoughtful lovers of nature 
and of man, and drawing men to natural piety. Car- 
lyle's works got reprinted at Boston, diffusing a strong, 
and then, also, a healthy influence on old and young. 
The writings of Coleridge were reprinted in America, 
all of them " Aids to Reflection," and brilliant with the 
scattered sparks of genius ; they incited many to think, 
more especially young Trinitarian ministers ; and, spite 
of the lack of both historic and philosophic accuracy, 
and the utter absence of all proportion in his writings ; 
spite of his haste, his vanity, prejudice, sophistry, con- 



310 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

fusion, and opium — he yet did great service in New 
England, helping to emancipate enthralled minds. 
The works of Cousin, more systematic, and more pro- 
found as a whole, and far more catholic and compre- 
hensive, continental, not insular, in his range, also be- 
came familiar to the Americans — reviews and transla- 
tion going where the eloquent original was not heard 

— and helped to free the young mind from the gross 
sensationalism of the academic philosophy on one side, 
and the grosser supernaturalism of the ecclesiastic the- 
ology on the other. 

The German language, hitherto the priceless treas- 
ure of a few, was becoming well known, and many were 
thereby made acquainted with the most original, deep, 
bold, comprehensive, and wealthy literature in the 
world, full of theologic and philosophic thought. 
Thus, a great store-house was opened to such as were 
earnestly in quest of truth. Young Mr. Strauss, In 
whom genius for criticism was united with extraordi- 
nary learning and rare facility of philosophic speech, 
wrote his " Life of Jesus," where he rigidly scrutinized 
the genuineness of the Gospels and the authenticity 
of their contents, and, with scientific calmness, brought 
every statement to his steady scales, weighing It, not 
always justly, as I think, but Impartially always, with 
philosophic coolness and deliberation. The most for- 
midable assailant of the ecclesiastical theology of 
Christendom, he roused a host of foes, whose writings 

— mainly Ill-tempered, insolent, and sophistical — it 
was yet profitable for a young man to read. 

The value of Christian miracles, not the question of 
fact, was discussed at Boston, as never before In Amer- 
ica. Prophecy had been thought the Jachin, and mir- 
acles the Boaz, whereon alone Christianity could rest; 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 311 

but, said some, if both be shaken down, the Lord's 
house will not fall. The claims of ecclesiastical tradi- 
tion came up to be settled anew ; and young men, walk- 
ing solitary through the moonlight, asked, " Which is 
to be permanent master — a single accident in human 
history, nay, perchance only the whim of some anony- 
mous dreamer, or the substance of human nature, 
greatening with continual development, and 

*Not without access of unexpected strength?'" 

The question was also its answer. 

The rights of labor were discussed with deep philan' 
thropic feeling, and sometimes with profound thought, 
metaphysic and economic both. The works of Charles 
Fourier — a strange, fantastic, visionary man, no 
doubt, but gifted also with amazing insight of the 
truths of social science — shed some light in these 
dark places of speculation. Mr. Ripley, a bom demo- 
crat, in the high sense of that abused word, and one 
of the best cultured and mose enlightened men in 
America, made an attempt at Brook Farm in West 
Roxbury, so to organize society that, the results of 
labor should remain in the workman's hand, and not 
slip thence to the trader's till; that there should be 
" no exploitation of man by man," but toil and 
thought, hard work and high culture, should be united 
m the same person. 

The natural rights of women began to be inquired 
into, and publicly discussed; while in private, great 
pains were taken in the chief towns of New England, 
to furnish a thorough and comprehensive education 
to such young maidens as were born with two talents, 
mind and money. 

Of course, a strong reaction followed. At the 



312 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

Cambridge Divinity School, Professor Henry Ware, 
Jr., told the young men, if there appeared to them 
any contradiction between the reason of man and the 
letter of the Bible, they " must follow the written 
word," " for you can never be so certain of the cor- 
rectness of what takes place in your own mind, as of 
what is written in the Bible." In an ordination ser- 
mon, he told the young minister not to preach him- 
self, but Christ; and not to appeal to human nature 
for proof of doctrines, but to the authority of revela- 
tion. Other Unitarian ministers declared, " There 
are limits to free inquiry ; " and preached, " Reason 
must be put down, or she will soon ask terrible ques- 
tions ; " protested against the union of philosophy and 
religion, and assumed to " prohibit the banns " of 
marriage between the two. Mr. Norton — then a 
great name at Cambridge, a scholar of rare but con- 
tracted merit, a careful and exact writer, bom for 
controversy, really learned and able in his special de- 
partment, the interpretation of the New Testament — 
opened his mouth and spoke: the mass of men must 
accept the doctrines of religion solely on the authority 
of the learned, as they do the doctrines of mathemati- 
cal astronomy ; the miracles of Jesus — he made merry 
at those of the Old Testament — are the only evidence 
of the truth of Christianity ; in the popular religion 
of the Greeks and Romans, there was no conception of 
God ; the new philosophic attempts to explain the facts 
of religious consciousness were " the latest form of 
infidelity ; " the great philosophical and theological 
thinkers of Germany were " all atheists ; " " Schleier- 
macher was an atheist," as was also Spinoza, his mas- 
ter, before him ; and Cousin, who was only " that 
Frenchman," was no better; the study of philosophy. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 3ia 

and the neglect of " Biblical criticism," were leading 
mankind to ruin; everywhere was instability and in- 
security ! 

Of course, this reaction was supported by the minis- 
ters in the great churches of commerce, and by the 
old literary periodicals, which never knew a star was 
risen till men wondered at it in the zenith ; the Unita- 
rian journals gradually went over to the opponents of 
freedom and progress, with lofty scorn rejecting their 
former principles, and repeating the conduct they had 
once complained of; Cambridge and Princeton seemed 
to be interchanging cards. From such hands Cousin 
and Emerson could not receive needed criticism, but 
only vulgar abuse. Dr. Channing could " not draw 
a long breath in Boston," where he found the successors 
of Paul trembling before the successors of Felix. 
Even Trinitarian Moses Stuart seemed scarcely safe 
in his hard-bottomed Hopkinsian chair, at Andover. 
The Trinitarian ministers and city schoolmasters galled 
Horace Mann with continual assaults on his measures 
for educating the people. Unitarian ministers struck 
hands with wealthy liquor dealers to drive Mr. Pier- 
pont from his pulpit, where he valiantly preached 
" temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come," 
appealing to " a day after to-day." Prominent anti- 
slavery men were dropped out of all wealthy society 
in Boston, their former friends not knowing them in 
the streets ; Mr. Garrison was mobbed by men in hand- 
some coats, and found defense from their fury only 
in a jail; an assembly of women, consulting for the 
liberation of their darker sisters, was driven with hoot- 
ings into the street. The attorney general of Mas- 
sachusetts brought an indictment for blasphemy 
against a country minister, one of the most learned 



314 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

Biblical scholars in America, for publicly proving that 
none of the " Messianic prophecies " of the " Old 
Testament was ever fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth, 
who accordingly was not the expected Christ of the 
Jews. Abner Kneeland, editor of a newspaper, in 
which he boasted of the name " infidel," was clapped 
in jail for writing against the ecclesiastical notion 
of God, the last man ever punished for blasphemy in 
the State. At the beck of a Virginian slave-holder, 
the governor of Massachusetts suggested to the legisla- 
ture the expediency of abridging the old New England 
liberty of speech. 

The movement party established a new quarterly, 
the Dial, wherein their wisdom and their folly rode 
together on the same saddle, to the amazement of 
lookers-on. The short-lived journal had a narrow 
circulation, but its most significant papers were scat- 
tered wide by newspapers which copied them. A 
Quarterly Review was also established by Mr. Brown- 
son, then a Unitarian minister and " sceptical demo- 
crat " of the most extravagant class, but now a Catho- 
lic, a powerful advocate of material and spiritual 
despotism, and perhaps the ablest writer in America 
against the rights of man and the welfare of his race. 
In this he diffused important philosophic ideas, dis- 
played and disciplined his own extraordinary talents 
for philosophic thought and popular writings, and 
directed them towards Democracy, Transcendentalism, 
" New Views," and the " Progress of the Species." 

I count it a piece of good fortune that I was a 
young man when these things were taking place, when 
great questions were discussed, and the public had not 
yet taken sides. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 315 

After I became a minister I laid out an extensive 
plan of study, a continuation of previous work. I 
intended to write a " History of the Progressive 
Development of Religion among the leading Races of 
Mankind," and attended at once to certain prelimina- 
ries. I studied the Bible more carefully and compre- 
hensively than before, both the criticism and interpre- 
tation ; and, in six or seven years, prepared an " In- 
troduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old 
Testament," translated from the German of Dr. De 
Wette, the ablest writer In the world on that theme; 
the book as published was partly his and partly mine. 
This work led me to a careful study of the Christian 
Fathers of the first five centuries, and of most 
of the great works written about the Bible and 
Christianity. I Intended to prepare a similar work on 
the New Testament, and the Apocrypha of both Old 
and New. I studied the philosophers, theologians, 
and Biblical critics of Germany, the only land where 
theology was then studied as a science, and developed 
with scientific freedom. I was much helped by the 
large learning and nice analysis of these great thinkers, 
who have done as much for the history of the Chris- 
tian movement as Niebuhr for that of the Roman State. 
But as I studied the profound works of Catholic and 
Protestant, the regressive and the progressive men, and 
got Instruction from all, I did not feel inclined to 
accept any one as my master, thinking It lawful to ride 
on their horses without being myself either saddled 
or bridled. 

The critical study of the Bible only enhanced my 
reverence for the great and good things I found In the 
Old Testament and New. They were not the less valu- 
able because they were not the work of " miraculous 



S16 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

and infallible inspiration," and because I found them 
mixed with some of the worst doctrines ever taught by 
men ; it was no strange thing to find pearls surrounded 
by sand, and roses beset with thorns. I liked the Bible 
better when I could consciously take its contradictory 
books each for what it is, and felt nothing command- 
ing me to accept it for what it is not ; and could freely 
use it as a help, not slavishly serve it as a master, or 
worship it as an idol. I took no doctrine for true, 
simply because it was in the Bible ; what therein seemed 
false or wrong, I rejected as freely as if I had found 
it in the sacred books of the Buddhists or Mormons. 

I had not preached long before I found, as never 
before, that practically, the ecclesiastical worship of 
the Bible hindered the religious welfare and progress 
of the Christians more than any other cause. 

With doctors, the traditionary drug was once a fet- 
ish, which they reverenced and administered without 
much inquiring whether it would kill or cure. But 
now, fortunately, they are divided into so many sects, 
each terribly criticising the other, the spirit of phil- 
osophic scepticism and inquiry by experiment has so 
entered the profession, that many have broken with 
that authority, and ask freely, " How can the sick man 
recover? " The worship of the traditionary drug is 
getting ended. 

With lawyers, the law of the land, custom, or pro- 
mulgated statute, is also a fetish. They do not ask, 
"Is the statute right? — will its application promote 
justice? " which is the common interest of all men ; but 
only, "Is it law?" To this the judge and advocate 
must prostitute their conscience; hence the personal 
ruin which so often is mistaken for personal success. 

With Protestant ministers, the Bible is a fetish ; it is 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 317 

so with Catholic priests hkewlse, only to them the 
Roman Church Is the master-fetish, the " big thunder," 
while the Bible is but an Inferior and subservient Idol. 
For ultimate authority, the minister does not appeal 
to God, manifesting Himself In the world of matter 
and the world of man, but only to the Bible; to that 
he prostitutes his mind and conscience, heart and soul; 
on the authority of an anonymous Hebrew book, he 
will justify the slaughter of innocent men, women and 
children, by the thousand; and, on that of an anony- 
mous Greek book, he will believe, or at least command 
others to believe, that man Is born totally depraved, 
and God will perpetually slaughter men In hell by the 
million though they had committed no fault, except 
that of not believing an absurd doctrine they had never 
heard of. Ministers take the Bible In the lump as 
divine ; all between the lids of the book is equally the 
" Word of God," infallible and miraculous ; he that 
believeth It shall be saved, and he that believeth not 
shall be damned ; no amount of piety and morality can 
make up for not believing this. No doctor Is ever so 
subordinate to his drug, no lawyer lies so prone before 
statute and custom, as the mass of ministers before 
the Bible, the great fetish of Protestant Christendom. 
The Epheslans did not so worship their great goddess 
Diana and the meteoric stone which fell down from 
Jupiter. " We can believe anything," say they, 
" which has a ' Thus saith the Lord ' before or after 
It." The Bible is not only master of the soul, it is 
also a talisman to keep men from harm ; bodily contact 
with it, through hand or eye, Is a part of religion ; so 
It lies In railroad stations. In the parlors and sleeping 
chambers of taverns, and the cabins of ships, only to 
be seen and touched, not read. The pious mother puts 



318 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

it in the trunk of her prodigal son, about to travel, 
and while she knows he is wasting her substance upon 
harlots and in riotous living, she contents herself with 
the thought that " he has got his Bible with him, and 
promised to read a chapter every day." So the Catho- 
lic mother uses an image of the " Virgin Mother of 
God," and the Rocky Mountain savage a bundle of 
grass: it is a fetish. 

But with this general worship of the Bible there is 
yet a cunning use of it; as the lawyers twist a statue 
to wring out a meaning they know it does not contain, 
but themselves put in, or warp a decision till it fits 
their purpose, so, with equal sophistry, and perhaps 
self-deceit, do the ministers twist the Bible to support 
their special doctrine : no book has been explained with 
such sophistry. Thus, some make the Apostle Paul 
a Unitarian, and find neither divinity nor the pre-ex- 
istence ascribed to Jesus in the fourth Gospel; while 
others discover the full-blown Trinity in the first verse 
of the first chapter of the first book in the Bible ; nay, 
yet others can find no devil, no wrathful God, and 
no eternal damnation, even in the New Testament. 
But all these ministers agree that the Bible is the 
" Word of God," " His only Word," miraculous and 
infallible, and that belief in it is indispensable to Chris- 
tianity, and continually preach this to the people. 

I had not been long a minister, before I found this 
worship of the Bible as a fetish hindering me at each 
progressive step. If I wished to teach the nobleness 
of man, the Old Testament and New were there with 
dreadful condemnations of human nature ; did I speak 
of God's love for all men, the Bible was full of ghastly 
things — chosen people, hell, devil, damnation — to 
prove that He loved only a few, and them not over- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 319 

much ; did I encourage free individuality of soul, such 
as the great Biblemen themselves had, asking all to 
be Christians as Jesus was a Christ, there were texts 
of bondage, commanding a belief in this or that ab- 
surdity. There was no virtue but the Scriptures could 
furnish an argument against it. I could not deny the 
existence of ghosts and witches, devils and demons,, 
haunting the earth, but revelation could be quoted 
against me. Nay, if I declared the constancy of 
nature's laws, and sought therein great argument for 
the constancy of God, all the miracles came and held 
their mythologic finger up. Even slavery was " of 
God," for the " divine statutes " in the Old Testament 
admitted the principle that man might own a man as 
well as a garden or an ox, and provided for the measure. 
Moses and the prophets were on its side, and neither 
Paul of Tarsus nor Jesus of Nazareth uttered a direct 
word against it. The best thing in the Bible is the 
free genius for religion, which is itself inspiration, and 
not only learns particular truths through its direct 
normal intercourse with God, but creates new men in 
its own likeness, to lead every Israel out of his Egypt, 
and conduct all men to the Land of Promise. Whoso 
worships the Bible loses this. 

I set myself seriously to consider how I could best 
oppose this monstrous evil; it required great caution. 
I feared lest I should weaken men's natural trust in 
God, and their respect for true religion, by rudely 
showing them that they worshiped an idol, and were 
misled into gross superstition. This fear did not come 
from my nature, but from ecclesiastical tradition, and 
the vice of a New England theologic culture. It has 
been the maxim of almost every sect in Christendom 
that the mass of men, in religious matters, must be 



320 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

ruled with authority, that is, by outward force; this 
principle belongs to the idea of a supernatural revela- 
tion; the people cannot determine for themselves what 
is true, moral, religious; their opinions must be made 
for them by supernatural authority, not by them 
through the normal use of their higher faculties. 
Hence the Catholic priest appeals to the supernatural 
church to prove the infallibility of the jMDpe, the ac- 
tual presence of the body and blood of Jesus in the 
sacramental bread and wine ; hence the Protestant ap- 
peals to the supernatural Bible, to prove that Jesus 
was born with no human father, the total depravity 
of all men, the wrath of God, the existence of a devil, 
and the eternal torments of hell. Besides, the man 
of superior education is commonly separated from 
sympathizing with the people, and that by the very 
culture they have paid for with their toil, and which 
ought to unite the two ; he has little confidence in their 
instinct or reflection. 

I had some of these unnatural doubts and fears ; 
but my chief anxiety came less from distrust of man- 
kind, than from diffidence in my own power to tell the 
truth so clear and well that I should do no harm. 
However, when I saw the evil which came from this su- 
perstition, I could not be silent. In conversation and 
preaching, I explained little details — this was poetry 
in the Bible, and not matter of fact ; that was only the 
dress of the doctrine, not truth itself; the authors of 
Scripture were mistaken here and there; they believed 
in a devil, which was a popular fancy of their times ; 
a particular prophecy has never been fulfilled. 

But the whole matter must be treated more phil- 
osophically, and set on its true foundation. So, de- 
signing to save men's reverence for the grand truths 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 321 

of the Bible, while I should wean them away from 
worshiping it, I soon laboriously wrote two sermons 
on the contradictions in the Scripture — treating of 
historic contradictions, where one part is at variance 
with another, or with actual facts, authenticated by 
other witnesses ; of scientific contradictions, passages 
at open variance with the facts of the material uni- 
verse; and of moral and religious contradictions, pas- 
sages which were hostile to the highest intuitions and 
reflections of human nature. I made the discourses 
as perfect as I then could at that early stage of my 
life ; very imperfect and incomplete I should, doubt- 
less, find them now. I then inquired about the ex- 
pediency of preaching them immediately. I had not 
yet enough practical experience of men to authorize 
me to depart from the ecclesiastical distrust of the 
people ; I consulted older and enlightened ministers. 
They all said, " No ! preach no such thing ! You will 
only do harm." One of the most learned and liberal 
ministers of New England advised me never to oppose 
the popular religion. " But, if it be wrong to hinder 
the religious welfare of the people — what then ? " 
Why, let it alone ; all the old philosophers did so ; 
Socrates sacrificed a cock to ^Esculapius. He that 
spits in the wind spits in his own face; you will ruin 
yourself, and do nobody any good." 

Silenced, but not convinced, I kept my unpreached 
sermons, read books on kindred matters, and sought 
to make my work more complete as a whole, and more 
perfect in all its parts. At length I consulted a very 
wise and thoughtful layman, old, with large social ex- 
perience, and much esteemed for sound sense, one who 
knew the difficulties of the case, and would not let his 

young children read the Old Testament, lest it should 
XII— 21 



322 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

injure their religious character. I told him my con- 
viction and my doubts, asking his advice. He also 
thought silence wiser than speech, yet said there were 
many thoughful men who felt troubled by the offen- 
sive things in the Bible, and would be grateful to any 
one who could show that religion was independent 
thereof. " But," he added, " if you try it, you will 

be misunderstood. Take the society at , perhaps 

one of the most intelligent In the city ; you will preach 
your sermons, a few will understand and thank you. 
But the great vulgar, who hear Imperfectly and re- 
member imperfectly, and at the best understand but 
little, they will say, * He finds faults In the Bible. 
What does It all mean ; what have we got left ? ' And 
the little vulgar, who hear and remember still more 
imperfectly, and understand even less, they will ex- 
claim, ' Why, the man is an infidel ! He tells us there 
are faults In the Bible. He is pulling down religion.' 
Then It will get into the newspapers, and all the minis- 
ters In the land will be down upon you. No good 
will be done, but much harm. You had better let It 
all alone." 

I kept my sermons more than a year, doubting 
whether the little congregation would be able to choose 
between truth and error when both were set before 
them, and fearing lest I should weaken their faith In 
pure religion, when I showed It was not responsible 
for the contradictions in the Hebrew and Greek Scrip- 
ture. But at length I could wait no longer; and ta 
ease my own conscience, I preached the two sermons, 
yet not venturing to look the audience in the face 
and see the immediate result. In the course of the 
week, men and women of the commonest education, 
but of earnest character and profound religious feel- 



/ 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

ing, took pains to tell me of the great comfort I had 
given them by showing, what they had long felt, that 
the Bible is one thing and religion another ; that the 
two had no necessary connection ; that the faults of the 
Old Testament or the New need not hinder any man 
from religious development; and that he never need 
try to believe a statement in the Bible which was at 
variance with his reason and his conscience. They 
thanked me for the attempt to apply common sense 
to religion and the Bible. The most thoughtful and 
religious seemed the most instructed. I could not 
learn that any one felt less reverence for God, or less 
love for piety and morality. It was plain I had re- 
moved a stone of stumbling from the public path. 
The scales of ecclesiastical tradition fell from my eyes ; 
by this crucial experiment, this guide-board instance, 
I learned that the mass of men need not be led blind- 
fold by clerical authority, but had competent power 
of self-direction, and while they needed the scholar as 
their help, had no need of a self-appointed master. 
It was clear that a teacher of religion and theology 
should tell the world all he knew thereunto appertain- 
ing, as all teachers of mathematics or of chemistry 
are expected to do in their profession. 

I had once felt very happy, when I could legitimate 
these three great primal instinctive intuitions, of the 
divine, the just, and the immortal; I now felt equally 
joyous at finding I might safely appeal to the same 
instincts in the mass of New England men, and build 
religion on that imperishable foundation. 

I continued my humble studies, philosophical and 
theological; and as fast as I found a new truth, I 
preached it to gladden other hearts in my own parish, 
and elsewhere, when I spoke in the pulpits of my 



324. EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

friends. The neighboring ministers became familiar 
with my opinions and my practice, but seldom uttered 
a reproach. At length, on the 19th of May, 1841, 
at the ordination of Mr. Shackford, a thoughtful and 
promising young man, at South Boston, I preached 
a " Discourse of the Transient and Permanent in 
Christianity." The Trinitarian ministers who were 
present joined in a public protest; a great outcry was 
raised against the sermon and its author. Theological 
and commercial newspapers rang with animadversions 
against its wickedness. " Unbeliever," " infidel," 
" atheist," were the titles bestowed on me by my 
brothers in the Christian ministry ; a venerable minis- 
ter, who heard the report in an adjoining county, 
printed his letter in one of the most widely circulated 
journals of New England, calling on the attorney 
general to prosecute, the grand jurj' to indict, and 
the judge to sentence me to three years' confinement 
in the State prison for blasphemy. 

I printed the sermon, but no bookseller in Boston 
would put his name to the title-page — Unitarian 
ministers had been busy with their advice. The 
Swedenborgian printers volunteered the protection of 
their name ; the little pamphlet was thus published, 
sold, and vehemently denounced. Most of my clerical 
friends fell off; some would not speak to me in the 
street, and refused to take me by the hand; in their 
public meetings they left the sofas or benches when 
I sat down, and withdrew from me as Jews from con- 
tact with a leper. In a few months most of my former 
ministerial coadjutors forsook me, and there were only 
six who would allow me to enter their pulpits. But yet 
one Unitarian minister. Rev. John L. Russell, though 
a stranger till then, presently after came and offered 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 325 

me his help in my time of need. The controlling men 
of the denomination determined, " This young man 
must be silenced ! " The Unitarian periodicals were 
shut against me and my friends — the public must not 
read what I wrote. Attempts were secretly made to 
alienate my little congregation, and expel me from my 
obscure station at West Roxbury. But I had not gone 
to war without counting the cost. I well knew before- 
hand what awaited me, and had determined to fight 
the battle through, and never thought of yielding or 
being silenced. I told my opponents the only man 
who could " put me down " was myself, and I trusted 
I should do nothing to bring about that result. If 
thrust out of my own pulpit, I made up my mind to 
lecture from city to city, from town to town, from 
village to village, nay, if need were, from house to 
house, well assured that I should not thus go over the 
hamlets of New England till something was come. 
But the little society came generously to my support 
and defense, giving me the heartiest sympathy, and 
offered me all the indulgence in their power. Some 
ministers and generous-minded laymen stood up on 
my side, and preached or wrote in defense of free 
thought and free speech, even in the pulpit. Friendly 
persons, both men and women, wrote me letters to cheer 
and encourage, also to warn — this against fear, that 
against excess and violence; some of them never gave 
me their names, and I have only this late opportunity 
to thank them for their anonymous kindness. Of 
course scurrilous and abusive letters did not fail to ap- 
pear. 

Five or six men in Boston thought this treatment 
was not quite fair; they wished to judge neither a 
man nor his doctrines unheard, but to know at length 



326 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

what I had to say ; so they asked me to deliver a course 
of five lectures in your city, on religious matters. I 
consented, and in the autumn of 1841 delivered five 
lectures on " Matters pertaining to Religion ; " they 
were reported in some of the newspapers, most ably 
and fully in the New York Tribune^ not then the 
famous and powerful sheet it has since become. I 
delivered the lectures several times that winter in New 
England towns, and published them in a volume the 
next spring. I thought no bookseller would put his 
name to the title-page; but when the work was ready 
for the public eye, my friend, the late Mr. James 
Brown, perhaps the most eminent man in the American 
book trade, volunteered to take charge of it, and the 
book appeared with the advantage of issuing from one 
of the most respectable publishing-houses in the United 
States. Years afterwards he told me that two " rich 
and highly-respectable gentlemen of Boston " begged 
him to have nothing to do with it ; " We wish," said 
they, " to render it impossible for him to publish his 
work." But the bookseller wanted fair play. 

The next autumn I delivered in Boston six " Ser- 
mons for the Times," treating of theology, of religion, 
and of its application to life. These also were re- 
peated in several other places. But, weary with 
anxiety and excess of work, both public and private, 
my health began to be seriously impaired; and in 
September, 1843, I fled off to Europe, to spend a 
year in recovery, observation, and thought. I had 
there an opportunity to study nations I had previously 
known only by their literature, and by other men's 
words ; to see the effect which despotic, monarchic, and 
aristocratic institutions have on multitudes of men, 
who, from generation to generation, had lived under 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 327 

them; to study the effect of those forms of rehglon 
which are enforced by the inquisitor or the constable; 
and, in many forms, to see the difference between free- 
dom and bondage. In their architecture, painting, 
and sculpture, the European cities afforded me a new 
world of art, while the heterogeneous crowds which 
throng the streets of those vast ancient capitals, so 
rich in their historic monuments, presented human life 
in forms I had not known before. It is only in the 
low parts of London, Paris, and Naples, that an Ameri- 
can learns what the ancients meant by the " people," 
the " populace," and sees what barbarism may exist 
in the midst of wealth, culture, refinement, and manly 
virtue. There I could learn what warning and what 
guidance the Old World had to offer to the New. 
Visiting some of the seats of learning, which, in 
Europe, are also sometimes the citadel of new thought 
and homes of genius, I had an opportunity of convers- 
ing with eminent men, and comparing their schemes 
for improving mankind with my own. Still more, I 
had an entire year, free from all practical duties, for 
revising my own philosophy and theology, and laying 
out plans for future work. My involuntary year of 
rest and inaction turned out, perhaps, the most profit- 
able in my life, up to that time, in the acquisition of 
knowledge, and in preparing for much that was to 
follow. 

Coming home the next September, with more physi- 
cal strength than ever before, I found a hearty wel- 
come from the many friends who crowded the little 
meeting-house to welcome my return — as before to 
bid me God-speed — and resumed my usual labors, pub- 
lic and private. In my absence my theological foes 
had contented themselves with declaring that my doc- 



328 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

trines had taken no root in America, and my personal 
friends were turning off from the error of their ways ; 
but the sound of my voice roused my opponents to new 
activity, and ere long the pulpits and newspapers rang 
with the accustomed warfare. But even in Boston 
there were earnest ministers who lifted up their voices 
in behalf of freedom of thought in the study, and free 
speech in the pulpit. I shall never cease to be grate- 
ful to Mr. Pierpont, Mr. Sargent, and James Free- 
man Clarke, " friends in need, and friends indeed." 
They defended the principle of religious freedom, 
though they did not share the opinions it led me to, 
nor always approve of the manner in which I set them 
forth. It was zeal for the true and the right, not 
special personal friendship for me, which moved them 
to this manly course. In the most important orthodox 
quarterly in America, a young Trinitarian minister. 
Rev. Mr. Porter, reviewed my " Discourse of Religion," 
not doing injustice to author or work, while he stoutly 
opposed both. A few other friendly words were also 
spoken ; but what were these among so many ! 

Under these circumstances you formed your society. 
A few earnest men thought the great principle of 
religious freedom was in danger; for, indeed, it was 
ecclesiastically repudiated, and that too with scorn and 
hissing by the Unitarians — the " liberal Christians ! " 
the " party of progress " — not less than by the ortho- 
dox. Some of you came together, privately at first, 
and then in public, to look matters in the face, and 
consider what ought to be done. A young man pro- 
posed this resolution : " Resolved^ That the Rev. Theo- 
dore Parker shall have a chance to be heard in Boston." 
That motion prevailed, and measures were soon taken 
to make the resolution an event. But, so low was our 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

reputation, that, though payment was offered in ad- 
vance, of all the unoccupied halls in Boston, only one 
could be hired for our purpose ; but that was the 
largest and most central. So, one rainy Sunday, the 
streets full of snow, on the 16th of February, 1845, 
for the first time, I stood before you to preach and 
pray ; we were strangers then. I spoke of the " In- 
dispensableness of True Religion for Man's Welfare 
in his Individual and his Social Life." I came to build 
up piety and morality ; to pull down only what cum- 
bered the ground. I was then in my thirty-fifth year, 
and had some knowledge of the historical development 
of religion in the Christian world. I knew that I came 
to a " thirty years' war," and I had enlisted for the 
whole, should life hold out so long. I knew well what 
we had to expect at first ; for we were committing the 
sin which all the great world-sects have held unpardon- 
able — attempting to correct the errors of theory and 
the vices of practice in the Church. No offense could 
ecclesiastically be greater; the Inquisition was built to 
punish such ; to that end blazed the fagots at Smith- 
field, and the cross was set up on Calvary. Truth has 
her cradle near Golgotha. You knew my spirit and 
tendency better than my special opinions, which you 
then gave a " chance to be heard in Boston." But I 
knew that I had thoroughly broken with the ecclesias- 
tical authority of Christendom ; its God was not my 
God, nor its Scriptures my Word of God, nor its 
Christ my Saviour; for I preferred the Jesus of his- 
toric fact to the Christ of theologic fancy. Its nar- 
row, partial, and unnatural heaven I did not wish to 
enter on the terms proposed, nor did I fear, since 
earliest youth, its mythic, roomy hell, wherein the 
triune God, with His pack of devils to aid, tore the 



330 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

human race in pieces for ever and ever. I came to 
preach " another Gospel," sentiments, ideas, actions, 
quite unhke what belonged to the theology of the 
Christian Church. Though, severely in earnest, I 
came to educate men into true religion as well as I 
could, I knew I should be accounted the worst of men, 
ranked among triflers, mockers, infidels, and atheists. 
But I did not know all the public had to offer me of 
good or ill; nay, I did not know what was latent in 
myself, nor foresee all the doctrines which then were 
hid in my own first principles, what embryo fruits and 
flowers lay sheathed in the obvious bud. But at the 
beginning I warned you that if you came, Sunday 
after Sunday, you would soon think very much as I did 
on the great matters you asked me to teach — because 
I had drawn my doctrine from the same human nature 
which was in you, and that would recognize and own 
its child. 

Let me arrange, under three heads, some of the 
most important doctrines I have aimed to set forth. 

I. The Infinite Perfection of God. — This doc- 
trine is the corner-stone of all my theological and re- 
ligious teaching — the foundation, perhaps, of all that 
is peculiar in my system. It is not known to the Old 
Testament or the New ; it has never been accepted by 
any sect in the Christian world ; for though it be equal- 
ly claimed by all, from the Catholic to the Mormon, 
none has ever consistently developed it, even in theory, 
but all continually limit God in power, in wisdom, and 
still more eminently in justice and in love. The idea 
of God's imperfection has been carried out with dread- 
ful logic in the " Christian scheme." Thus it is com- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 331 

monly taught, in all the great theologies, that, at the 
crucifixion of Jesus, " the Creator of the universe was 
put to death, and his own creatures were his execu- 
tioners." Besides, in the ecclesiastic conception of 
Deity, there is a fourth person to the Godhead — ■ 
namely, the Devil, an outlying member, unacknowl- 
edged, indeed, the complex of all evil, but as much a 
part of Deity as either Son or Holy Ghost, and far 
more powerful than all the rest, who seem but jackals 
to provide for this " roaring lion," which devours what 
the others but create, die for, inspire, and fill. I know 
this statement is ghastly — the theologic notion it 
sets forth to me seems far more so. While the Chris- 
tians accept the Bible as the " Word of God," direct, 
miraculous, infallible, containing a complete and per- 
fect " revelation " of His nature. His character, and 
conduct, it is quite impossible for them to accept, or 
even tolerate, the infinite perfection of God. The 
imperfect and cruel character attributed to God re- 
joicing in His hell and its legions of devils, is the 
fundamental vice of the ecclesiastical theology, which 
so many accept as their " religion," and name the 
hideous thing " Christianity." They cannot escape 
the consequence of their first principle ; their gate must 
turn on its own hinge. 

I have taught that God contains all possible and 
conceivable perfection: — the perfection of being, 
self -subsistence, conditioned only by itself; the perfec- 
tion of power, all-mightiness ; of mind, all-knowing- 
ness; of conscience, all-righteousness; of affection, 
all-lovingness ; and the perfection of that innermost 
element, which in finite man is personality, all-holi- 
ness, faithfulness to Himself. 

The infinitely perfect God is immanent in the world 



332 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

of matter, and in the world of spirit, the two hemis- 
pheres which to us make up the universe ; each particle 
thereof is inseparable from Him, while He yet trans- 
cends both, is limited by neither, but in Himself is 
complete and perfect. 

I have not taught that the special qualities I find 
in the Deity are all that are actually there ; higher and 
more must doubtless appear to beings of larger powers 
than man's. My definition distinguishes God from all 
other beings ; it does not limit Him to the details of my 
conception. I only tell what I know, not what others 
may know, which lies beyond my present conscious- 
ness. 

He is a perfect Creator, making all from a perfect 
motive, for a perfect purpose, of perfect substance, 
and as a perfect means ; none other are conceivable 
with a perfect God. The motive must be love, the 
purpose welfare, the means the constitution of the 
universe itself, as a whole and in parts — for each 
great or little thing coming from Him must be per- 
fectly adapted to secure the purpose it was intended 
for, and achieve the end it was meant to serve, and 
represent the causal motive which brought it forth. 
So there must be a complete solidarity between God 
and the two-fold universe which He creates. The per- 
fect Creator is thus also a perfect providence; indeed, 
creation and providence are not objective accidents 
of Deity, nor subjective caprices, but the development 
of the perfect motive to its perfect purpose, love be- 
coming a universe of perfect welfare. 

I have called God Father, but also Mother, not by 
this figure implying that the Divine Being has the 
limitations of the female figure — as some ministers 
deceitfully allege of late, who might have been sup- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

posed to know better than thus to pervert plain speech 
— but to express more sensibly the quality of tender 
and unselfish love, which mankind associates more with 
Mother than aught else beside. 

II. The Adequacy of Man for all his Func- 
tions. — From the infinite perfection of God there fol- 
lows unavoidably the relative perfection of all that He 
creates. So, the nature of man, tending to a progres- 
sive development of all his manifold powers, must be 
the best possible nature, most fit for the perfect ac- 
complishment of the perfect purpose, and the attain- 
ment of the perfect end, which God designs for the 
race and the individual. It is not difficult in this gener- 
al way to show the relative perfection of human nature, 
deducing this from the infinite perfection of God ; but 
I think it impossible to prove it by the inductive proc- 
ess of reasoning from concrete facts of external ob- 
servation, of which we know not yet the entire sum, 
nor any one, perhaps, completely. Yet I have trav- 
eled also this inductive road, as far as it reaches, and 
tried to show the constitution of man's body, with its 
adaptation to the surrounding world of matter, and the 
constitution of his spirit, with its intellectual, moral, 
affectional, and religious powers, and its harmonious 
relation with the world of matter, which affords them a 
playground, a school, and a workshop. So I have 
continually taught that man has in himself all the 
faculties he needs to accomplish his high destination, 
and in the world of matter finds, one by one, all the 
material helps he requires. 

We all see the unity of life in the individual; his 
gradual growth from merely sentient and passive baby- 
hood, up to thoughtful, self-directing manhood. I 



SS4i EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

have tried to show there was a similar unity of Hfe in 
the human race, pointing out the analogous progressive 
development of mankind, from the state of ignorance, 
poverty, and utter nakedness of soul and sense, the 
necessary primitive conditions of the race, up to the 
present civilization of the leading nations. The prim- 
itive is a wild man, who gradually grows up to civiliza- 
tion. To me, the notorious facts of human history, 
the condition of language, art, industry, and the foot- 
prints of man left all over the torrid and temperate 
lands, admit of no other interpretation. Of course 
it must have required many a thousand years for Di- 
vine Providence to bring this child from his mute, 
naked, ignorant poverty, up to the many-voiced, many- 
colored civilization of these times ; and, as in the strata 
of mountain and plain, on the snores of the sea, and 
under " the bottom of the monstrous world," the geolo- 
gist finds proof of time immense, wherein this material 
cosmos assumed its present form, so in ruins of cities, 
in the weapons of iron, bronze, or stone, found in 
Scandinavian swamps, on the sub-aquatic enclosures 
of the Swiss lakes, in the remains of Egyptian indus- 
try, which the holy Nile, " mother of blessings " — 
now spiritual to us, as once material to those whose 
flesh she fed — has covered with many folds of earth 
and kept for us ; and still more in the history of art, 
science, war, industry, and the structure of language 
itself, a slow-growing plant, do I find proof of time 
immense, wherein man, this spiritual cosmos, has been 
assuming his present condition, individual, domestic, 
social, and national, and accumulating that wealth of 
things and thoughts which is the mark of civilization. 
I have tried to show by history the progressive devel- 
opment of industry and wealth, of mind and knowl- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 335 

edge, of conscience and justice, of the affections and 
philanthropy, of the soul and true religion ; the many 
forms of the family, the community, State, and Church, 
I look on as so many " experiments in living," all use- 
ful, each, perhaps, in its time and place, as indispensa- 
ble as the various geological changes. But this pro- 
gressive development does not end with us; we have 
seen only the beginning; the future triumphs of the 
race must be vastly greater than all accomplished yet. 
In the primal instincts and automatic desires of man, 
I have found a prophecy that what he wants is possi- 
ble, and shall one day be actual. It is a glorious 
future on earth which I have set before your eyes and 
hopes, thereby stimulating both your patience to bear 
now what is inevitable, and your thought and toil to 
secure a future triumph to be had on no other terms. 
What good is not with us is before, to be attained by 
toil and thought, and religious life. 

III. Absolute or Natural Religion. — In its 
complete and perfect form, this is the normal develop- 
ment, use, discipline, and enjoyment of every part of 
the body, and every faculty of the spirit ; the direction 
of all natural powers to their natural purposes. I 
have taught that there were three parts which make 
up the sum of true religion; the emotional part, of 
right feelings, where religion at first begins in the 
automatic, primal instinct; the intellectual part, of 
true ideas, which either directly represent the primitive, 
instinctive feelings of whoso holds them, or else, pro- 
duce a kindred, secondary, and derivative feeling in 
whoso receives them; and the practical part, of just 
actions, which correspond to the feelings and the ideas, 
and make the mere thought or emotion into a concrete 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

deed. So, the true religion which comes from the 
nature of man, consists of normal feelings towards 
God and man, of correct thoughts about God, man, 
and the relation between them, and of actions corre- 
sponding to the natural conscience when developed in 
harmony with the entire constitution of man. 

But this religion which begins in the instinctive feel- 
ings, and thence advances to reflective ideas, assumes 
its ultimate form in the character of men, and so ap- 
pears in their actions, individual, domestic, social, na- 
tional, ecclesiastical, and general-human ; it builds man- 
ifold institutions like itself, wherein it rears up men 
in its own image. All the six great historic forms of 
religion — the Brahmanic, Hebrew, Classic, Buddhis- 
tic, Christian, Mahometan — profess to have come 
miraculously from God, not normally from man; and, 
spite of the excellence which they contain, and the 
vast service the humblest of them has done, yet each 
must ere long prove a hindrance to human welfare, for 
it claims to be a finality, and makes the whole of hu- 
man nature wait upon an accident of human history 
— '- and that accident the whim of some single man. 
The absolute religion which belongs to man's nature, 
and is gradually unfolded thence, like the high achieve- 
ments of art, science, literature, and politics, is onl}'^ 
distinctly conceived of in an advanced stage of man's 
growth ; to make its idea a fact, is the highest triumph 
of the human race. This is the idea of humanity, 
dimly seen, but clearly felt, which has flitted before 
the pious eyes of men in all lands and many an 
age, and been prayed for as the " kingdom of heaven." 
The religious history of the race is the record of man's 
continual but unconscious eff^orts to attain this " desire 
of all nations ; " poetic stories of the " golden age," or 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 337 

of man in the Garden of Eden, are but this natural 
wish looking back and fondly dreaming that " the 
former days were better than these." But while all 
the other forms of religion must ultimately fail before 
this, fading as it flowers, each one of them has yet 
been a help towards it, probably indispensable to the 
development of mankind. For each has grown out 
of the condition of some people, as naturally as the 
wild primitive flora of Santa Cruz has come from the 
state of this island — its geologic structure and chem- 
ical composition, its tropic heat, and its special situa- 
tion amid the great currents of water and of air ; as nat- 
urally as the dependent fauna of the place comes from 
its flora. Thus in the religions of mankind, as in the 
various governments, nay, as in the diff^erent geologic 
periods, there is diversity of form, but unity of aim; 
destruction is only to create; earthquakes, which sub- 
merged the sunken continents whose former mountains 
are but islands now, and revolutions, in which the 
Hebrew and Classic religions went under, their poetic 
summits only visible, have analogous functions to per- 
form — handmaids of creation both. 

For these three great doctrines — of God, of Man, 
of Religion — I have depended on no Church and no 
Scripture; yet have I found things to serve me in all 
scriptures and every church. I have sought my au- 
thority in the nature of man — in facts of conscious- 
ness within me, and facts of observation in the human 
world without. To me the material world and the out- 
ward history of man do not supply a sufficient revela- 
tion of God, nor warrant me to speak of infinite 
perfection. It is only from the nature of man, from 

facts of intuition, that I can gather this greatest of all 
XII— 22 



338 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

truths, as I find it in my consciousness reflected back 
from Deity itself. 

I know well what may be said of the " feebleness 
of all the human faculties," their " unfaithfulness and 
unfitness for their work ; " that the mind is not ade- 
quate for man's intellectual function, nor the con- 
science for the moral, nor the aff^ections for the 
philanthropic, nor the soul for the religious, nor even 
the body for the corporeal, but that each requires 
miraculous help from God who is only outside of hu- 
manity. There is a denial which boldly rejects the 
immortality of man and the existence of Deity, with 
many another doctrine, dear and precious to mankind ; 
but the most dangerous scepticism is that, which, pro- 
fessing allegiance to all these, and crossing itself at 
the name of Jesus, is yet so false to the great primeval 
instincts of man, that it declares he cannot be certain 
of anything he learns by the normal exercise of any 
faculty. I have carefully studied this school of doubt, 
modern, not less than old, as it appears in history. In 
it there are honest inquirers after truth, but misled by 
some accident, and also sophists, who live by their 
sleight of mind, as jugglers by their dexterity of 
hand. But the chief members of this body are the 
mockers, who, in a world they make empty, find the 
most fitting echo to their hideous laugh; and church- 
men of all denominations, who are so anxious to sup- 
port their ecclesiastic theology, that they think it is 
not safe on its throne till they have annihilated the 
claim of reason, conscience, the affections, and the 
soul to any voice in determining the greatest concerns 
of man — thinking there is no place for the Christian 
Church or the Bible till they have nullified the faculties 
which created both, and rendered Bible-makers and 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 339 

Church-founders impossible. But it is rather a poor 
compliment these ecclesiastic sceptics pay their Deity, 
to say He so makes and manages the world that we 
cannot trust the sights we see, the sounds we hear, the 
thoughts we think, or the moral, aiFectional, religious 
emotions we feel; that we are certain neither of the 
intuitions of instinct, nor the demonstrations of reason, 
but yet by some anonymous testimony, can be made 
sure that Balaam's she-ass spoke certain Hebrew words, 
and one undivided third part of God was " born of the 
Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was cruci- 
fied, descended into Hell, and the third day rose again," 
to take away the wrath which the other two undivided 
third parts of God felt against all mankind. 

It is not for me to say there is no limit to the possi- 
ble attainments of man's religious or other faculties. 
I will not dogmatize where I do not know. But his- 
tory shows that the Hercules' Pillars of one age are 
sailed through in the next, and a wide ocean entered 
on, which in due time is found rich with islands of its 
own, and washing a vast continent not dreamed of by 
such as slept within their temples of old, while it sent 
to their very coasts its curious joints of unwonted 
cane, its seeds of many an unknown tree, and even 
elaborate boats, wherein lay the starved bodies of 
strange-featured men, with golden jewels in their ears. 
No doubt there are limits to human industry, for finite 
man is bounded on every side; but, I take it, the 
Hottentot, the Gaboon negro, and the wild man of 
New Guinea, antecedently; would think it impossible 
that mankind should build the pyramids of Egypt for 
royal ostentation, for defense throw up the fortresses 
of Europe and the wall of China, or for economic use 
lay down the roads of earth, of water, iron, wood, op 



340 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

stone, which now so swiftly help to develop the ma- 
terial resources and educate the spiritual powers of 
Europe and America. Still less would they conceive 
it possible for men to make all the farms, the mills, 
the shops, the houses, and the ships of civilized man- 
kind. But the philosopher sees it is possible for toil 
and thought soon to double, and then multiply mani- 
fold the industrial attainments of Britain or New 
England. 

No doubt there may be a limit to mathematic 
thought, though to me that would seem boundless, 
and every scientific step therein to be certain; but the 
barefooted negro, who goads his oxen under my win- 
dow, and can only count his two thumbs, is no limit 
to Archimedes, Descartes, Newton, and Laplace; no 
more are these men of vast genius a limit to the 
mathematic possibility of humankind. They who in- 
vented letters, arithmetic symbols, gunpowder, the 
compass, the printing press, the telescope, the steam- 
engine, and the telegraph, only ploughed in corners 
of the field of human possibility, and showed its bounds 
were not where they had been supposed. A thousand 
years ago the world had not a man, I think, who could 
even dream of such a welfare as New England now 
enjoys. Who shall tell industrious, mathematic, pro- 
gressive mankind, " Stop there ; you have reached the 
utmost bound of human possibility ; beyond it, economy 
is waste, and science folly, and progress downfall ! " 
No more is the atheistic mocker or the ecclesiastic bigot 
commissioned to stop the human race with his cry, 
" Cease there, mankind, thy religious search ! for 
thousand million-headed as thou art, thou canst know 
nought directly of thy God, thy duty, or thyself 1 
Pause, and accept my authenticated word ; stop, and 
despair ! " 



, 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 341 

I know too well the atheistic philosopher's bitter 
mock, and the haughty scorn of theologic desplsers 
of mankind, who, diverse in all besides, yet agree in 
their contempt for human nature, glory in the errors 
of genius, or the grosser follies of mankind, and seek 
out of the ruins of humanity to build up, the one his 
palace, and the other his church. But I also know that 
mankind heeds neither the atheistic philosopher nor the 
theologic despiser of his kind; but, faithful to the 
great primeval instincts of the soul, believing, creating, 
and rejoicing, goes on its upward way, nor doubts of 
man or God, of sense or intellect. 

These three great doctrines I have preached posi- 
tively, as abstract truth, representing facts of the uni- 
verse; that might be peaceful work. But they must 
take a concrete form, and be applied to the actual life 
of the individual, family, community. State, and 
Church; this would have a less peaceful look; for I 
must examine actual institutions, and criticise their 
aim, their mode of operation, and their result. The 
great obvious social forces in America may be thus 
summed up : — 

1. There is the organized trading power — having 
its home in the great towns, which seeks gain with 
small regard to that large justice which represents 
alike the mutual interests and duties of all men, and 
to that humanity which interposes the affectional in- 
stinct when conscience is asleep. This power seems to 
control all things, amenable only to the almighty 
dollar. 

2. The organized political power, the parties in 
office, or seeking to become so. This makes the 
statutes, but is commonly controlled by the trading 



34.2 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

power, and has all of its faults, often intensified; yet 
it seems amenable to the instincts of the people, who, 
on great occasions, sometimes interfere and change 
the traders' rule. 

3. The organized ecclesiastical power, the various 
sects which, though quite unlike, yet all mainly agree 
in their fundamental principle of vicariousness — an 
alleged revelation, instead of actual human faculties, 
salvation from God's wrath and eternal ruin, by the 
atoning blood of crucified God. This is more able 
than either of the others ; and though often despised, 
in a few years can control them both. In this gen- 
eration no American politician dares affront it. 

4. The organized literary power, the endowed col- 
leges, the periodical press, with its triple multitude 
of journals — commercial, political, theological ^ — 
and sectarian tracts. This has no original ideas, but 
diffuses the opinion of the other powers whom it rep- 
resents, whose will it serves, and whose kaleidoscope it 
is. 

I must examine these four great social forces, and 
show what was good in them, and what was ill; ascer- 
tain what natural religion demanded of each, and what 
was the true function of trade, government, a church, 
and a literature. When I came to a distinct con- 
sciousness of my own first principle, and my conse- 
quent relation to what was about me, spite of the good 
they contained, I found myself greatly at variance 
with all the four. They had one principle, and I 
another; of course, our aim and direction were com- 
monly different and often opposite. Soon I found 
that I was not welcome to the American market. State, 
Church, nor press. It could not be otherwise; yet I 
confess I had not anticipated so thorough a separa- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 543 

tion betwixt me and these forces which control society, 
but had laid out work I could not execute alone, nor 
perhaps without the aid of all the four. 

It is not now, my friends, worth while for me to 
enter on the details of these plans which have come to 
nothing, and which I shall probably never work out; 
but I ought at least to name some of the most im- 
portant things I hoped to do. When I first came to 
Boston I intended to do something for the perishing 
and dangerous classes in our great towns. The 
amount of poverty and consequent immorality in Bos- 
ton is terrible to think of, while you remember the 
warning of other nations, and look to the day after 
to-day. Yet it seemed to me the money given by pub- 
lic and private charity — two fountains that never 
fail in puritanic Boston — was more than sufficient to 
relieve it all, and gradually remove the deep-seated 
and unseen cause which, in the hurry of business and 
of money, is not attended to. There is a hole in the 
dim-lit public bridge, where many fall through and 
perish. Our mercy pulls a few out of the water; it 
does not stop the hole, nor light the bridge, nor warn 
men of the peril. We need the great charity that 
palliates effects of wrong, and the greater justice which 
removes the cause. 

Then there was drunkenness, which is the greatest 
concrete curse of the laboring Protestant population 
of the North, working most hideous and wide-extended 
desolation. It is as fatal as starvation to the Irish 
Catholic. None of the four great social forces is its 
foe. There, too, was prostitution ; men and women 
mutually polluted and polluting, blackening the face 
of society with dreadful woe. Besides, in our great 
towns, I found thousands, especially the poorer Irish, 



344 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

oppression driving them to us, who, save the disciphne 
of occasional work, got no education here, except 
what the streets taught them in childhood, or the 
popish priest and the American demagogue — their 
two worst foes — noisily offered in their adult years ; 
it seemed to me not difficult for the vast charity of 
Boston to furnish instruction and guidance to this 
class of the American people, both in their childhood 
and their later youth. That admirable institution, the 
Warren Street Chapel — well-nigh the most Christian 
public thing in Boston — and the Children's Aid So- 
ciety at New York, with its kindred, abundantly show 
how much can be done, and at how little cost. 

Still more, I learned early in life that the criminal 
is often the victim of society, rather than its foe, and 
that our penal law belongs to the dark ages of brute 
force, and aims only to protect society by vengeance 
on the felon, not also to elevate mankind by refining 
him. In my boyhood I knew a man, the last result 
of generations of ancestral crime, who spent more 
than twenty years in our State Prison, and died there, 
under sentence for life, whose entire illegal thefts did 
not amount to twenty dollars ; and another, not better 
born, who lawfully stole houses and farms, lived a 
" gentleman," and at death left a considerable estate, 
and the name of land-shark. While a theological 
student, I taught a class in the Sunday School of the 
State Prison, often saw my fellow-townsman, became 
well acquainted with several convicts, learned the mode 
of treatment, and heard the sermons and ghastly 
prayers which were let fly at the heads of the poor, 
unprotected wretches ; I saw the " orthodox preach- 
ers and other helps," who gave them " spiritual in- 
struction," and learned the utter insufficiency of our 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 345 

penal law to mend the felon or prevent his growth in 
wickedness. When I became your minister I hoped 
to do something for this class of men, whose crimes 
are sometimes but a part of their congenital mis- 
fortune or social infamy, and who are bereft of the 
sympathy of mankind, and unconstitutionally beset 
with sectarian ministers, whose function is to torment 
them before their time. 

For all these, the poor, the drunken, and the Ig- 
norant, for the prostitute, and the criminal, I meant 
to do something, under the guidance, perhaps, or cer- 
tainly with the help of the controlling men of the 
town or State; but, alas! I was then fourteen years 
younger than now, and did not quite understand all 
the consequences of my relation to these great social 
forces, or how much I had offended the religion of the 
State, the press, the market, and the Church. The 
cry, " destroyer," " fanatic," " Infidel," " atheist," 
" enemy of mankind," was so widely sounded forth 
that I soon found I could do little in these great 
philanthropies, where the evil lay at our own door. 
Many as you are for a religious society, you were too 
few and too poor to undertake what should be done; 
and outside of your ranks I could look for little help, 
even by words and counsel. Besides, I soon found my 
very name was enough to ruin any new good enter- 
prise. I knew there were three periods in each great 
movement of mankind — that of sentiment. Ideas, and 
action. I fondly hoped the last had come; but when 
I found I had reckoned without the host, I turned my 
attention to the two former, and sought to arouse the 
sentiment of justice and mercy, and to diffuse the Ideas 
which belonged to this five-fold reformation. Hence 
I took pains to state the facts of poverty, drunken- 



346 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

ness, ignorance, prostitution, crime ; to show their 
cause, their effect, and their mode of cure, leaving 
it for others to do the practical work. So, if I wanted 
a measure carried in the legislature of the town or 
State, or by some private benevolent society, I did 
my work by stealth. I sometimes saw my scheme 
prosper, and read my words in the public reports, 
while the whole enterprise had been ruined at once if 
my face or name had appeared in connection with it. 
I have often found it wise to withhold my name from 
petitions I have myself set a-going and found suc- 
cessful ; I have got up conventions, or mass meetings, 
whose " managers," asked me not to show my face 
thereat. 

This chronic and progressive unpopularity led to 
another change of my plans, not abating my activity, 
but turning it in another direction. To accomplish 
my work, I must spread my ideas as widely as possible, 
without resorting to that indecency of advertising so 
common in America. There was but one considerable 
publishing-house in the land that would continue to 
issue my works — this only at my own cost and risk. 
As it had only a pecuniary interest therein, and that so 
slight, in its enormous business, my books did not have 
the usual opportunity of getting known and circu- 
lated. They were seldom offered for sale, except in 
one book-store in Boston; for other States, I must 
often be my own bookseller. None of the quarterlies 
or monthlies was friendly to me ; most of the news- 
papers were hostile ; the New York Tribune and Even- 
ing Post were almost the only exceptions. So my 
books had but a small circulation at home In compari- 
son with their diffusion in England and Germany, 
"where, also, they received not only hostile, but most 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 347 

kindly notice, and sometimes from a famous pen. But 
another opportunity for diffusing my thought offered 
itself In the lyceum or public lecture. Opposed by 
these four great social forces at home, I was surprised 
to find myself becoming popular in the lecture hall. 
After a few trials I " got the hang of the new school- 
house," and set myself to serious work therein. ' 
For a dozen years or more, I have done my share 
of lecturing in public, having many invitations more 
than I could accept. The task was always disagree- 
able, contrary to my natural disposition and my 
scholarly habits. But I saw the nation had reached 
an Important crisis In Its destination, and, though 
Ignorant of the fact, yet stood hesitating between two 
principles. The one was slavery, which I knew leads 
at once to military despotism — political, ecclesiastic- 
al, social — and ends at last In utter and hopeless 
ruin; for no people fallen on that road has ever risen 
again ; It is the path so many other republics have 
taken and finished their course, as Athens and the 
Ionian towns have done, as Rome and the common- 
wealths of the middle ages. The other was freedom, 
which leads at once to Industrial democracy — respect 
for labor, government over all, by all, for the sake 
of all, rule after the eternal right as it is writ In the 
constitution of the universe — securing welfare and 
progress. I saw that these four social forces were 
advising, driving, coaxing, wheedling the people to 
take the road to ruin ; that our " great men," In which 
" America Is so rich beyond all other nations of the 
earth," went strutting along that path to show how 
safe it is, crying out " Democracy," " Constitution," 
" Washington," " Gospel," " Christianity," " Dollars," 
and the like, while the instincts of the people, the tradi- 



k 



348 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

tions of our history, and the rising genius of men and 
women well-born in these times of peril, with still, 
small voice, whispered something of self-evident truths 
and inalienable rights. 

I knew the power of a great idea ; and spite of the 
market, the State, the Church, the press, I thought a 
few earnest men in the lecture halls of the North, might 
yet incline the people's mind and heart to justice and 
the eternal law of God — the only safe rule of conduct 
for nations, as for you and me — and so make the 
American experiment a triumph and a joy for all 
humankind. Nay, I thought I could myself be of 
some service in that work ; for the nation was yet 
so young, and the instinct of popular liberty so 
strong, it seemed to me a little added weight would 
turn the scale to freedom. So I appointed myself a 
home missionary for lectures. 

Then, too, I found I could say what I pleased in 
the lecture room, so long as I did not professedly put 
my thought into a theologic or political shape; while 
I kept the form of literature or philosophy, I could 
discourse of what I thought most important, and men 
would listen one hour, two hours, nay, three hours: 
and the more significant the subject was, the more 
freely, profoundly, and fairly it was treated, the more 
would the people come, the more eagerly listen and 
enthusiastically accept. So I spared no labor in prep- 
aration or delivery, but took it for granted the hum- 
blest audience, in the least intelligent town or city, was 
quite worthy of my best efforts, and could understand 
my facts and metaphysic reasonings. I did not fear 
the people would be offended, though I hurt their feel- 
ings never so sore. 

Besides, the work was well paid for in the large 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 349 

towns, while the small ones did all they could afford 
• — giving the lecturer for a night more than the school- 
master for a month. The money thus acquired en- 
abled me to do four desirable things, which it is not 
needful to speak of here. 

Since 1848 I have lectured eighty or a hundred 
times each year — in every Northern State east of the 
Mississippi, once also in a slave State, and on slavery 
itself. I have taken most exciting and important sub- 
jects, of the greatest concern to the American people, 
and treated them independent of sect or party, street 
or press, and with what learning and talent I could 
command. I put the matter in quite various forms 
— for each audience is made up of many. For eight 
or ten years, on the average, I have spoken to sixty 
or a hundred thousand persons in each year, besides 
addressing you on Sundays, in the great hall you throw 
open to all comers. 

Thus I have had a wide field of operation, where 
I might rouse the sentiment of justice and mercy, dif- 
fuse such ideas as I thought needful for the welfare 
and progress of the people, and prepare for such ac- 
tion as the occasion might one day require. As I was 
supposed to stand nearly alone, and did not pretend 
to represent any one but myself, nobody felt respon- 
sible for me ; so all could judge me, if not fairly, at 
least with no party or sectarian prejudice in my favor; 
and as I felt responsible only to myself and my God, 
I could speak freely: this was a twofold advantage. 
I hope I have not spoken in vain. I thought that by 
each lecture I could make a new, deep, and lasting im- 
pression of some one great truth on five thoughtful 
men, out of each thousand who heard me. Don't think 
me extravagant; it is only one half of one per cent.! 



850 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

If I spoke thus efficiently to sixty thousand in a win- 
ter, there would be three hundred so impressed, and 
in ten years it would be three thousand! Such a re- 
sult would satisfy me for my work and my loss of 
scholarly time in this home mission for lectures. Be- 
sides, the newspapers of the large towns spread wide 
the more salient facts and striking generalizations of 
the lecture, and I addressed the eyes of an audience 
I could not count nor see. 

Still more, in the railroad cars and steamboats I 
traveled by, and the public or private houses I stopped 
at, when the lecture was over, strangers came to see 
me ; they were generally marked men — intellectual, 
moral, philanthropic, at any rate, inquiring and at- 
tentive. We sometimes talked on great matters; I 
made many acquaintances, gained much miscellaneous 
information about men and things, the state of public 
opinion, and, perhaps, imparted something in return. 
So I studied while I taught. 

Nor was this all. I had been ecclesiastically re- 
ported to the people as a " disturber of the public 
peace," an " infidel," an " atheist," an " enemy to man- 
kind." When I was to lecture in a little town, the 
minister, even the Unitarian, commonly stayed at home. 
Many, in public or private, warned their followers 
" against listening to that bad man. Don't look him 
in the face ! " Others stoutly preached against me. 
So, in the bar-room I was the song of the drunkard, 
and the minister's text in the pulpit. But, when a 
few hundreds, in a mountain town of New England, 
or in some settlement on a prairie of the West, or 
when many hundreds, in a wide city, did look me in 
the face, and listen for an hour or two while I spoke, 
plain, right on, of matters familiar to their patriotic 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 351 

hopes, their business, and their bosoms, as their faces 
glowed in the excitement of what they heard, I saw 
the clerical prejudice was stealing out of their mind, 
and I left them other than I found them. Nay, it has 
of.ten happened that a man has told me, by letter or 
by word of mouth, " I was warned against you, but I 
would go and see for myself; and when I came home 
I said, ' After all, this is a man, and not a devil ; at 
least, he seems human. Who knows but he may be 
honest, even in his theological notions? Perhaps he 
is right in his religion. Priests have been a little mis- 
taken sometimes before now, and said hard words 
against rather good sort of men, if we can trust the 
Bible. I am glad I heard him.' " 

Judging from the results, now pretty obvious to 
whoso looks, and by the many affectionate letters sent 
me from all parts of the North, I think I did not over- 
rate the number of thoughtful men who possibly might 
be deeply and originally influenced by what I said in 
the lectures. Three thousand may seem a large num- 
ber; I think it is not excessive. In the last dozen 
years, I think scarcely any American, not holding a 
political office, has touched the minds of so many men, 
by freely speaking on matters of the greatest impor- 
tance, for this day and for ages to come. I am sure 
I have uttered great truths, and such are never spoken 
in vain; I know the effect a few great thoughts had 
on me in my youth, and judge others by what I ex- 
perienced myself. Those ministers were in the right, 
who, years ago, said, " Keep that man out of the 
lecture room ; don't let him be seen in public. Every 
word he speaks, on any subject, is a blow against our 
religion ! " They meant, against their theology. 

Such are the causes which brought me into the lee- 



352 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

ture room. I did not neglect serving you, while I 
seemed only to instruct other men; for every friend 
I made in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin became an 
auxiliary in that great cause, so dear to you and me. 
Nay, I did not abandon my scholarly work while trav- 
eling and lecturing. The motion of the railroad cars 
gave a pleasing and not harmful stimulus to thought, 
and so helped me to work out my difficult problems 
of many kinds. I always took a sack of books along 
with me, generally such as required little eyesight and 
much thought, and so was sure of good company ; 
while traveling I could read and write all day long; 
but I would not advise others to do much of either; 
few bodies can endure the long-continued strain on 
eye and nerve. So, I lost little time, while I fancied 
I was doing a great and needful work. 

When I first came before you to preach, carefully 
looking before and after, I was determined on my 
purpose, and had a pretty distinct conception of the 
mode of operation. It was not my design to found 
a sect, and merely build up a new ecclesiastical insti- 
tution, but to produce a healthy development of the 
highest faculties of men, to furnish them the greatest 
possible amount of most needed instruction, and help 
them each to free spiritual individuality. The Church, 
the State, the community, were not ends, a finality of 
purpose, but means to bring forth and bring up in- 
dividual men. To accomplish this purpose I aimed 
distinctly at two things: first, to produce the greatest 
possible healthy development of the religious faculty, 
acting in harmonious connection with the intellectual^ 
moral, and afFectional; and' second, to lead you to help 
others in the same work. Let me say a word in detail 
of each part of my design. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 353 

I. According both to my experience and observa- 
tion, the rehgious element is the strongest in the spirit- 
ual constitution of man, easily controlling all the 
rest for his good or ill. I wished to educate this 
faculty under the influence of the true idea of God, 
of man, and of their mutual relation. I was not con- 
tent with producing morality alone — the normal ac- 
tion of the conscience and will, the voluntative keep- 
ing of the natural law of right : I saw the need also of 
piety — religious feeling toward the Divine, that in- 
stinctive, purely internal love of God, which, I think, 
is not dependent on conscience. I was led to this aim 
partly by my own disposition, which, I confess, nat- 
urally inclined me to spontaneous pious feeling, my only 
youthful luxury, more than to voluntary moral action ; 
partly by my early culture, which had given me much 
experience of religious emotions; and partly, also, by 
my wide and familiar acquaintance with the mystical 
writers, the voluptuaries of the soul, who dwelt in the 
world of pious feeling, heedless of life's practical 
duties, and caring little for science, literature, jus- 
tice, or the dear charities of common life. 

I count it a great good fortune that I was bred 
among religious Unitarians, and thereby escaped so 
much superstition. But I felt early that the " liberal " 
ministers did not do justice to simple religious feel- 
ing ; to me their preaching seemed to relate too much 
to outward things, not enough to the inward pious 
life; their prayers felt cold; but certainly they 
preached the importance and the religious value of 
morality as no sect, I think, had done before. Good 
works, the test of true religion, noble character, the 
proof of salvation, if not spoken, were yet implied 

in their sermons, spite of their inconsistent and tradi- 
XII— 23 



a54* EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

tionary talk about " Atonement," " Redeemer," " Sal- 
vatlon by Christ," and their frequent resort to other 
pieces of damaged phraseology. The effect of this 
predominant morality was soon apparent. In Mas- 
sachusetts, the headquarters of the Unitarians, not 
only did they gather most of the eminent intellect 
into their ranks, the original talent and genius of the 
most intellectual of the States, but also a very large 
proportion of its moral talent and moral genius, most 
of the eminent conscience and philanthropy. Leaving 
out of sight pecuniary gifts for theological and de- 
nominational purposes, which come from peculiar 
and well-known motives, where the Trinitarians are 
professedly superior, I think it will be found that all 
the great moral and philanthropic movements in the 
State — social, ecclesiastical, and political — from 
1800 to 1840, have been chiefly begun and conducted 
by the Unitarians. Even in the anti-slavery enter- 
prise, the most profound, unrespectable, and unpopu- 
lar of them all, you are surprised to see how many 
Unitarians — even ministers, a timid race — have per- 
manently taken an active and influential part. The 
Unitarians certainly once had this moral superiority, 
before the free, young, and growing party became 
a sect, hide-bound, bridled with its creed, harnessed 
to an old, lumbering, and crazy chariot, urged with 
sharp goads by near-sighted drivers, along the dusty 
and broken pavement of tradition, noisy and shouting, 
but going nowhere. 

But yet, while they had this great practical excel- 
lence, so obvious once, I thought they lacked the deep, 
internal feeling of piety, which alone could make 
it lasting; certainly they had not that most joy- 
ous of all delights. This fact seemed clear in 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 355 

their sermons, their prayers, and even in the hymns 
they made, borrowed, or " adapted." Most power- 
fully preaching to the understanding, the con- 
science, and the will, the cry was ever, " duty, 
duty ! work, work ! " They failed to address with 
equal power the soul, and did not also shout, '' joy, 
joy ! delight, delight ! " " Rejoice in God always, and 
again I say unto you, rejoice!" Their vessels were 
full of water; it was all laboriously pumped up from 
deep wells ; it did not gush out, leaping from the great 
spring, that is indeed on the surface of the sloping 
ground, feeding the little streams that run among the 
hills, and both quenching the wild asses' thirst, and 
watering also the meadows newly mown, but which yet 
comes from the rock of ages, and is pressed out by the 
cloud-compelling mountains that rest thereon — yes, 
by the gravitation of the earth itself. 

This defect of the Unitarians was a profound one. 
Not actually, nor consciously, but by the logic of their 
conduct, they had broken with the old ecclesiastic super- 
naturalism, that with its whip of fear yet compelled 
a certain direct, though perverted, action of the simple 
religious element in the Trinitarians; ceasing to fear 
" the great and dreadful God " of the Old Testament, 
they had not quite learned to love the all-beautiful and 
altogether lovely of the universe. But in general they 
had no theory which justified a more emotional ex- 
perience of religion. Their philosophy, with many ex- 
cellences, was sure of no great spiritual truth. To 
their metaphysics eternal life was only probable; the 
great argument for it came not from the substance 
of human nature, only from an accident in the persona] 
history of a single man; its proof was not Intuitive, 
from the primal instincts of mankind; nor deductive. 



856 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

from the nature of God; nor yet mductwe, from the 
general phenomena of the twofold universe; it was 
only inferential, from the " resurrection of Christ" 
— and exceptional fact, without parallel in the story 
of the race, and that resting on no evidence. Nay, 
in their chief periodical, when it represented only the 
opinions of the leaders of the sect, one of their most 
popular and powerful writers declared the existence 
of a God was not a certainty of metaphysical demon- 
stration, nor even a fact of consciousness. So this 
great primal truth, fundamental to all forms of reli- 
gion, has neither an objective, necessary, and ontologi- 
cal root in the metaphysics of the universe, nor yet 
a mere subjective, contingent, and psychological root 
in the consciousness of John and Jane, but, like the 
existence of " phlogiston " and " the celestial ether " 
of the intersteller spaces, it Is a matter of conjecture, 
of inference from observed facts purely external and 
contingent ; or, like the existence of the devil, is wholly 
dependent on the " miraculous and infallible revela- 
tion." Surely, a party with no better philosophy, 
and yet rejecting instinct for guide, breaking with 
the supernatural tradition at the Trinity, its most 
important link, could not produce a deep and contin- 
uous action of the religious element In the mass of its 
members, when left individually free ; nor when organ- 
ized Into a sect, with the discipline of a close corpo- 
ration, could it continue to advance, or even to hold 
its own, and live long on Its " Statement of Reasons 
for not believing the Trinity." Exceptional men — 
like Henry Ware, Jr., who leaned strongly towards 
the old supernaturalism, or like Dr. Channing, whose 
deeper reflection or reading supplied him with a more 
spiritual philosophy — might escape the misfortune 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 357 

of their party; but the majority must follow the logic 
of their principle. The leaders of the sect, their dis- 
tinctive creed only a denial, always trembling before 
the orthodox, rejected the ablest, original talent bom 
among them; nay, sometimes scornfully repudiated 
original genius, each offering a more spiritual philos- 
ophy, which they mocked at as " transcendental," and 
turned off to the noisy road of other sects, not grate- 
ful to feet trained in paths more natural. After 
denying the Trinity, and the Deity of Christ, they 
did not dare affirm the humanity of Jesus, the natural- 
ness of religion to man, the actual or possible uni- 
versality of inspiration, and declare that man is not 
amenable to ecclesiastic authority, either the oral 
Roman tradition, or the written Hebrew and Greek 
Scriptures; but naturally communing with God, 
through many faculties, by many elements, has in him- 
self the divine well of water, springing up full of ever- 
lasting life, and sparkling with eternal truth, and so 
enjoys continuous revelation. 

Alas ! after many a venturous and profitable cruise, 
while in sight of port, the winds all fair, the little 
Unitarian bark, o'ermastered by its doubts and fears, 
reverses its course, and sails into dark, stormy seas, 
where no such craft can live. Some of the fragments 
of the wreck will be borne by oceanic currents where 
they will be used by the party of progress to help 
to build more seaworthy ships; whilst others, when 
water-logged, will be picked up by the great orthodox 
fleet, to be kiln-dried in a revival, and then serve as 
moist, poor fuel for its culinary fires. It is a dismal 
fault in a religious party, this lack of piety, and dis- 
mally have the Unitarians answered it; yet let their 
great merits and services be not forgot. 



S58 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

I found this lack of the emotional part of religion 
affected many of the reformers. Some men, called by 
that name, were indeed mere selfish tongues, their only 
business to find fault and make a noise ; such are en- 
titled to no more regard than other common and noto- 
rious scolds. But in general, the leading reformers 
are men of large intellect, of profound morality, 
earnest, affectional men, full of philanthropy, and liv- 
ing lives worthy of the best ages of humanity. But 
as a general thing, it seemed to me they had not a pro- 
portionate development of the religious feelings, and 
so had neither the most powerful solace for their many 
griefs, nor the profoundest joy which is needful to 
hold them up mid all they see and suffer from. They, 
too, commonly shared this sensational philosophy, and 
broke with the ecclesiastic supematuralism which once 
helped to supply its defects. 

Gradually coming to understand this state of things, 
quite early in my ministry I tried to remedy it; of 
course I did the work at first feebly and poorly. I 
preached piety, unselfish love towards God, as well as 
morality, the keeping of His natural law, and philan- 
thropy, the helping of His human children. And I was 
greatly delighted to find that my discourses of piety 
were as acceptable as my sermons of justice and charity, 
touching the souls of earnest men. Nay, the more 
spiritual of the ministers asked me to preach such mat- 
ters in their pulpits, which I did gladly. 

You have broken with the traditions of the various 
churches whence you have come out, and turned your 
attention to many of the evils of the day. When I be- 
came your minister, I feared lest, in a general disgust 
at ecclesiastical proceedings, you should abandon this 
very innermost of all true religion; so I have taken 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 359 

special pains to show that well-proportioned piety is 
the ground of all manly excellence, and though it may 
exist, and often does, without the man's knowing it, yet 
in its highest form he is conscious of it. On this theme 
I have preached many sermons, which were very dear 
to me, though perhaps none of them has yet been 
published. But coming amongst you with some minis- 
terial experience, and much study of the effect of doc- 
trines, and ecclesiastical modes of procedure, I en- 
deavored to guard against the vices which so often 
attend the culture of this sentimental part of religion, 
and to prevent the fatal degeneracy that often attends 
it. When the religious element is actively excited 
under the control of the false theological ideas now 
so prevailing, it often takes one or both of these two 
misdirections : — 

1. It tends to an unnatural mysticism, which dries 
up all the noble emotions that else would produce a 
great useful character. The delicate and refined 
woman developes the sentiment of religion in her con- 
sciousness; surrounded by wealth, and seduced by its 
charms, she reads the more unpractical parts of the 
Bible, especially the Johannic writings, the Song of 
Solomon, and the more sentimental portions of the 
Psalms; studies Thomas a Kempis, Guyon, Fenelon, 
William Law, Keble ; pores over the mystic medita- 
tions of St. Augustine and Bernard; she kneels before 
her costly Prie-Dieu, or other sufficient altar, pours 
out her prayers, falls into an ecstasy of devout feeling, 
and elegantly disheveled like a Magdalen, weeps most 
delicious tears. Then rising thence, she folds her idle, 
unreligious hands, and, with voluptuous scorn, turns 
off from the homely duties of common life; while not 
only the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the drunken, 



360 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

the enslaved, and the abandoned are left uncared for^ 
but her own household is neglected, her husband, her 
very children go unblessed. She lives a life of intense 
religious emotion in private, but of intense selfishness 
at home, and profligate worldliness abroad. Her 
pious feeling is only moon-shine; nay, it is a will-o'- 
the-wisp, a wandering fire, which 

" Leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind." 

She is a voluptuary of the soul, often likewise in the 
senses ; her prayers are worth no more than so much 
novel-reading ; she might as well applaud Don Giovanni 
with her laugh at the opera, as St. John with her tears 
at church. This woman's religion is internal glitter, 
which gives nor light nor heat. " Like a fly in the 
heart of an apple, she dwells in perpetual sweetness," 
but also in perpetual sloth, a selfish wanton of the 
soul. In his Pare aux cerfs, Louis XV. trained his 
maiden victims to this form of devotion. 

2. It leads to ecclesiastical ritualism. This is the 
more common form in New England, especially in hard 
men and women. They join the church, and crowd 
the ecclesiastical meetings. Bodily presence there is 
thought a virtue ; they keep the Sunday severely idle ; 
their ecclesiastical decorum is awful as a winter's night 
at the North Pole of cold; with terrible punctuality 
they attend to the ordinance of bread and wine, look- 
ing grim and senseless as the death's head on the tomb- 
stones close by. Their babies are sprinkled with 
water, or themselves plunged all over in it; they have 
morning pra^^ers and evening prayers, grace before 
meat, and after meat, grace; nay, they give money 
for the theological purposes of their sect, and re- 
ligiously hate men not of their household of faith. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 361 

Their pious feeling has spent itself in secreting this 
abnormal shell of ritualism, which now cumbers them 
worse than Saul's great armor on the stripling shepherd 
lad. What can such pachyderms of the Church ac- 
complish that is good, with such an elephantiasis to 
swell, and bark, and tetter every limb ? Their religious 
feeling runs to shell, and has no other influence. They 
sell rum, and trade in slaves or coolies. They are re- 
morseless creditors, unscrupulous debtors; they devour 
widow's houses. Vain are the cries of humanity in 
such ears, stuff^ed with condensed wind. Their lives 
are little, dirty, and mean. 

Mindful of these two vices, which are both diseases 
of the misdirected soul, and early aware that devout- 
ness is by no means the highest expression of love 
for God, I have attempted not only to produce a nor- 
mal development of religious feeling, but to give it 
the normal direction to the homely duties of common 
life, in the kitchen, the parlor, nursery, school-room, 
in the field, market, office, shop, or ship, or street, or 
wherever the lines of our lot have fallen to us ; and 
to the " primal virtues," that shine aloft as stars which 
mariners catch glimpses of mid ocean's rack, and learn 
their course, and steer straight in to their desired 
haven ; and also, to the " charities, that soothe, and 
heal, and bless," and which are scattered at mankind's 
feet like flowers, each one a beauty the bee sucks honey 
from, and a seed to sow the world with wholesome 
loveliness ; for it is plain to me that the common duties 
of natural life are both the best school for the develop- 
ment of piety, and the best field for its exercise when 
grown to manly size. 

II. Partly for your education in true religion, and 
partly to promote the welfare of your brother man, 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

I have preached much on the great social duties of your 
time and place, recommending not only " palliative 
charity," but still more " remedial justice." So I 
have not only preached on the private individual vir- 
tues, which are, and ought to be, the most constant 
theme of all pulpits, but likewise on the public social 
virtues, that are also indispensable to the general wel- 
fare. This brought me into direct relation with the 
chief social evils of our day. In treating these mat- 
ters I have proceeded with much caution, beginning 
my attack a great way off. First of all, I endeavored 
to establish philosophically the moral principle I should 
appeal to, and show its origin in the constitution of 
man, to lay down the natural law so plain that all might 
acknowledge and accept it; next, I attempted to show 
what welfare had followed in human history from keep- 
ing this law, and what misery from violating it; then 
I applied this moral principle of nature and the actual 
experience of history to the special public vice I wished 
to whelm over. Such a process may seem slow ; I think 
it is the only one sure of permanent good effects. In 
this manner I have treated several prominent evils. 

1. I have preached against intemperance, showing 
the monstrous evil of drunkenness, the material and 
moral ruin it works so widely. My first offense in 
preaching came when I first spoke on the misery occa- 
sioned by this ghastly vice. The victims of it sat be- 
fore me, and were in great wrath; they never forgave 
me. Yet, I have not accepted the opinion of the lead- 
ing temperance men, that the use of intoxicating drinks 
is in itself a moral or a physical evil. I found they 
had not only a medical, but also a dietetic use to serve, 
and in all stages of development above the savage, man 
resorts to some sort of stimulus as food for the nervous 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 363 

system ; for a practice so nearly universal, I suppose 
there must be a cause in man's natural relation to the 
world of matter. Accordingly, I do not like the pres- 
ent legal mode of treating the vice, thinking It rests 
on a false principle which will not long work well; 
yet public opinion, now setting strong against this 
beastly vice, required the experiment, which could 
never be tried under better auspices than now. But 
I have gladly joined with all men to help to put down 
this frightful vice, which more than any other con- 
crete cause hinders the welfare and progress of the 
working people of the North. It was the first public 
social evil I ever attacked. I have not ceased to warn 
old and young against this monstrous and ugly sin, 
and to call on the appointed magistrates to use all 
their official power to end so fatal a mischief. In a 
great trading town, of course, such calls are vain ; the 
interest of the few Is against the virtue of the people. 
2. I have preached against covetousness — the ab- 
normal desire of accumulating property. In the 
Northern States our civilization Is based on respect 
for industry in both forms, toll and thought. Prop- 
erty is the product of the two ; It Is human power over 
nature, to make the material forces of the world supply 
the wants of man; Its amount Is always the test of 
civilization. Our political and social Institutions do 
not favor the accumulation of wealth In a few men 
or a few families; no permanent entails are allowed; 
It follows the natural laws of distribution amongst all 
the owner's children, or according to his personal 
caprice; In a few generations a great estate Is widely 
scattered abroad. But as we have no hereditary 
honors, office, or even title, and as wealth is all the 
parent can bequeath his child, it becomes not only 



864j experience AS A MINISTER 

a material power, but also a social distinction — the 
only one transmissible from sire to son. So wealth, 
and not birth from famous ancestors, is the thing most 
coveted; the stamp of the almighty dollar is the mark 
of social distinction ; science may be accounted folly, 
and genius madness, in the paved or the furrowed 
towns, but money is power in each. American " aristoc- 
racy " rests on this movable basis ; it is plutocracy ; 
every poor white boy may hope to trundle its golden 
wheels on to his little patch of ground, for the million- 
aire is not born, but self-made. Hence comes an in- 
tense desire of riches ; a great amount of practical 
talent goes out in quest thereof. Beside its intrinsic 
character, respect for money is in America what 
loyalty to the crown and deference to feudal superiors 
is in England ; " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass 
his master's crib," and the Americans the millionaire, 
the highest product of plutocracy. 

Now, on the whole, I do not find this desire of prop- 
erty excessive in the people of the North. I would 
greaten rather than lessen it, for it is the motive of 
our general enterprise, the proximate cause of much 
of our welfare and success. No nation was ever too 
well fed, housed, clad, adorned, and comforted in 
general; poverty, subordination to material want, is 
still the great concrete barrier to civilization ; " the 
nations of the world " must think chiefly of what they 
shall eat and drink, and wherewithal be clothed. In 
this generation, the productive industry of New Eng- 
land seems vulgar to careless eyes, and excessive to 
severe ones ; but it is yet laying the material and in- 
dispensable foundation for a spiritual civilization in 
some future age, more grand, I think, than mankind 
has hitherto rejoiced in. For not only will the peo- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 365 

pie's property be greater in proportion to their num- 
ber — their power to feed, clothe, house, adorn, and 
comfort themselves — but it will be more widely dis- 
tributed, consequently directed with more wisdom and 
humanity, and so bring forth and develop both more 
and higher talents. I have advised all men to shun 
poverty ; to seek a generous competence for themselves 
and their dependents, and that too by honest work, 
earning all they take. I see that a great fortune, 
thus acquired, may now be a nobler honor than all the 
red laurels of Nelson or Wellington, as well as a power 
of use and beauty for time to come. I honor the manly, 
self-denying enterprise which starts with no heritage 
but itself, and honestly earns a great estate. The man 
who makes a school-book like Colbum's " First Les- 
sons in Arithmetic," or invents a labor-saving contriv- 
ance like the sewing machine, or the reaping and 
thrashing machines, or who by trade develops the re- 
sources of the country, deserves a pay proportionate 
to his service. A Boston merchant died in 1847, who 
had so helped to turn the rivers of New England into 
spinners and weavers, that I think he earned millions 
of dollars more than he received. If a man fully pay 
in efficient, productive toil and thought, he is entitled 
to all he gets, one dollar or many million dollars; he 
earns his riches, gives equivalent for equivalent — for 
all honest traffic is but actual barter, mutual exchange 
of my work and your work — and if his estate be 
but what he has thus actually and honestly paid for 
with a service given, equivalent to the service received, 
what he can virtuously keep or humanely apply and 
expend, then it will never be too large. 

But covetousness — the lust after property already 
created; the dishonest desire to get wealth without 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

paying for it with proportionate service by toil and 
thought; the wish to hoard it as the chief object in 
life, holding for no generous use ; to expend it in per- 
sonal luxury, making man a delicate swine to eat and 
drink beyond the needs of generous nature, a butterfly 
to glitter in the public sun, or before the private stars 
of fashion, a sloth, to lie idle and deform the ground ; 
or to exhibit it for ostentation, fostering an unwieldly 
self-esteem or more disgraceful vanity — this is a vice 
I have warned men against continually ; I began early. 
It is a popular and most respectable offense, often 
counted a virtue. It assumes many forms, now ter- 
rible and then ridiculous. I have dealt with it accord- 
ingly, now exposing its injustice or its folly, now 
satirizing its vulgar indecency, now showing that the 
ill-bred children of men grossly rich come to a fate 
no better than the sons and daughters of the grossly 
poor; that voluntary beggars in ruffles and voluntary 
beggars in rags, are alike supported at the public cost, 
paying nothing for what they take, and so should be 
objects of contempt in a world where he is greatest 
who does the most and best. 

I have often spoken of the tyranny of the rich over 
the thriving and the poor — our country, state, and 
town all furnishing grievous examples of the fact. 
" As the lion eateth up the wild ass in the wilderness, 
so the rich eateth up the poor," is as true now in New 
England as two thousand years ago in Egypt. But 
when I have seen a man with large talents for business 
helping others while he helped himself, enriching his 
workmen, promoting their education, their virtue, and 
self-respect, I have taken special delight in honoring 
such an act of practical humanity. Happily we need 
not go out of Boston to find examples of this rare 
philanthropy. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 367 

3. As I was a schoolmaster at seventeen, though 
more from necessity than early fitness, I fear, and 
chairman of a town school committee at twenty-two, I 
have naturally felt much interest in the education of 
the people, and have often preached thereon. But I 
have seen the great defect of our culture, both in pub- 
lic and private schools ; our education is almost en- 
tirely intellectual, not also moral, affectional, and re- 
ligious. The Sunday Schools by no means remedy 
this evil, or attempt to mend it ; they smartly exercise 
the devotional feelings, accustom their pupils to a cer- 
tain ritualism, which is destined only to serve ecclesias- 
tical, and not humane purposes ; they teach some moral 
precepts of great value, but their chief function is 
to communicate theological doctrine, based on the al- 
leged supernatural revelation, and confirmed by 
miracles, which often confound the intellect, and be- 
fool the conscience. They do not even attempt any 
development of the higher faculties to an original ac- 
tivity at all commensurate with the vigorous action of 
the understanding. In the public schools there are 
sometimes devotional exercises, good in themselves, but 
little pains is directly taken to educate or even in- 
struct the deeper faculties of our nature. The evil 
seems to increase, for of late years many of the read- 
ing-books of our public and private schools seem to 
have been compiled by men with only the desire of 
gain for their motive, who have rejected those pieces 
of prose or poetry which appeal to what is deepest 
in human nature, rouse indignation against successful 
wrong, and fill the child with generous sentiments and 
great ideas. Sunday School books seem yet worse, so 
loaded with the superstitions of the sects. The hero- 
ism of this age finds no voice nor language in our 
schools. 



868 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

But this lack of morality in our schemes of culture 
appears most eminent in the superior education, in 
colleges, and other costly seminaries for maids and 
men. The higher you go up in the scale of institu- 
tions, the less proportionate pains is taken with the de- 
velopment of conscience, the affections, and the soul; 
in the dame school for infants, something is done to 
make the child " a good boy," or " a good girl," but 
almost nothing in the richest and most respectable col- 
leges. They are commonly seats of an unprogressive 
and immoral conservatism, where the studious youth 
may learn many an important discipline — mathemat- 
ical, philological, scientific, literary, metaphysical, and 
theologic — but is pretty sure to miss all effective in- 
struction in the great art and science of personal or 
public humanity. Hence our colleges are institutions 
not only to teach the mind, but also for the general 
hunkerization of young men ; and a professor is there 
sometimes unscrupulously appointed whose nature and 
character make it notorious that his chief function 
must necessarily be to poison the waters of life, which 
young men, from generation to generation, will be 
compelled to bow down at, and drink. In the last 
forty years I think no New England college, collective 
faculty, or pupils, has shown sympathy with any of 
the great forward movements of mankind, which are 
indicated by some national outbreak, like the French 
Revolutions of 1830 or 1848. 

From this fatal defect of our scheme of culture, it 
comes to pass that the class which has the superior 
education — ministers, professors, lawyers, doctors, 
and the like — is not only never a leader in any of the 
great humane movements of the age, where justice, 
philanthropy, or piety is the motive, but it continually 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

retards all efforts to reform evil institutions, or other- 
wise directly increase the present welfare or the fu- 
ture progress of mankind. The scholars' culture has 
palsied their natural instincts of humanity, and gives 
them instead, neither the personal convictions of free, 
moral reflection, nor the traditional commands of 
church authority, but only the maxims of vulgar 
thrift, " get the most, and give the least ; buy cheap, 
and sell dear ! " Exceptional men, like Channing, 
Pierpont, Emerson, Ripley, Mann, Rantoul, Phillips, 
Sumner, and a few others, only confirm the general 
rule, that the educated is also a selfish class, morally 
not in advance of the mass of men. No thoughtful, 
innocent man, arraigned for treason, would like to 
put himself on the college, and be tried by a jury of 
twelve scholars; it were to trust in the prejudice and 
technic sophistry of a class, not to " put himself on 
the country," and be judged by the moral instincts of 
the people. 

Knowing these facts — and I found them out pretty 
early — I have told them often in public, and shown 
the need of a thorough reform in our educational in- 
stitutions. Still more have I preached on the necessity 
that you should do in private for your children what 
no school in this age is likely to attempt — secure such 
a great development of the moral, affectional, and re- 
ligious powers, as shall preserve all the high instincts 
of nature, while it enriches every faculty by the in- 
formation given. I need not now speak of what I 
had long since intended to do amongst you in this mat- 
ter, when the opportunity should offer; for, alas, when 
it came, my power to serve you quickly went. 

4. I have preached much on the condition of woman. 
I know the great, ineffaceable difference between the 
XII— 24 



370 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

spiritual constitution of her and man, and the conse- 
quent difference in their individual, domestic, and social 
functions. But, examining the matter both philosoph- 
ically and historically, it seems clear that woman is 
man's equal, individually and socially entitled to the 
same rights. There is no conscious hostility or rivalry 
between the two, such as is often pretended ; man natu- 
rally inclines to be a little more than just to her, she 
a little more than fair to him ; a man would find most 
favor with a jury of women, as boys with nurses. 
But, certainly, her condition is sadly unfortunate ; for, 
whether treated as a doll or a drudge, she is practically 
regarded as man's inferior, intended by nature to be 
subordinate to him, subservient to his purposes ; not 
a free spiritual individuality like him, but a depend- 
ent parasite or a commanded servant. This idea ap- 
pears in all civilized legislation ; and in the " revealed 
religion " of Jews and Christians, as well as in that 
of Brahmans and Mahometans. Even in New Eng- 
land no public provision is made to secure superior 
education for girls as for boys. Woman has no place 
in the superior industry — shut out from the legal, 
clerical, and medical professions, and the higher de- 
partments of trade, limited to domestic duties, and 
other callings which pay but little ; when she does a 
man's service she has but half of his reward; no po- 
litical rights are awarded to her ; she is always taxed, 
but never represented. If married, her husband has 
legally an unnatural control over her property and 
her person, and, in case of separation, over her chil- 
dren. A young man with superior talents, bom to no 
other heritage, can acquire wealth, or, unaided, obtain 
the best education this age makes possible to any one; 
but with a woman it is not so ; if poor, she can only 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 371 

be enriched by marriage; hence mercantile wedlock is 
far more pardonable in her; no talents, no genius can 
secure a poor man's daughter her natural share in the 
high culture of the age. The condition of woman 
follows unavoidably from the popular idea, which she 
also shares often in the heroic degree, that she is by 
nature inferior to man. Prostitution and its half- 
known evils come from this as naturally as crime and 
drunkenness from squalid want, as plants from seeds. 

I have preached the equivalency of man and 
woman — that each in some particulars is inferior to 
the other, but, on the whole, mankind and woman- 
kind, though so diverse, are yet equal in their natural 
faculties ; and have set forth the evils which come to 
both from her present inferior position, her exclusion 
from the high places of social or political trust. But 
I have thought she will generally prefer domestic to 
public functions, and have found no philosophic or 
historic argument for thinking she will ever incline 
much to the rough works of man, or take any consid- 
erable part in Republican politics ; in a court like that 
of Louis XV, or Napoleon III, it might be different; 
but I have demanded that she should decide that ques- 
tion for herself, choose her own place of action, have 
her vote in all political matters, and be eligible to any 
office. 

In special, I have urged on you the duty of attend- 
ing to the education of young women, not only in ac- 
complishments — which are so often laborious in the 
process, only to be ridiculous in the display, and idle 
in their results — but in the grave discipline of study, 
and for the practical duties of life. A woman volun- 
tarily ignorant of household affairs and the manage- 
ment of a family, should be an object of pity or of 



372 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

contempt ; while the women of New England incline to 
despise the indispensable labor of housekeeping, and 
can neither make wearable garments, nor eatable bread, 
I have sometimes doubted whether the men of New- 
England, irritated with their sour fare, would think 
them quite fit to make laws for the State, or even for 
the Union. I have also called your attention to those 
most unfortunate outcasts, the friendless young girls 
in the streets of your own city, the most abandoned 
of the perishing class, who will soon become the most 
harmful of the dangerous class — for prostitution is 
always twofold, male as well as female damnation. 

It is delightful to see the change now taking place 
in the popular idea of woman, and the legislation of 
the Northern States. This reform at once will di- 
rectly affect half the population, and soon also the 
other half. I am not alarmed at the evils which ob- 
viously attend this change — the growing dislike of 
maternal duties, the increase of divorces, the false the- 
ories of marriage, and the unhappy conduct which 
thence results ; all these are transcient things, and will 
soon be gone — the noise and dust of the wagon that 
brings the harvest home. 

5. The American people are making one of the 
most important experiments ever attempted on earth, 
endeavoring to establish an industrial democracy, with 
the principle that all men are equal in their natural 
rights, which can be alienated only by the personal 
misconduct of their possessor; the great body of the 
people is the source of all political power, the maker 
of all laws, the ultimate arbiter of all measures ; while 
the special magistrates, high and low, are but ap- 
pointed agents, acting under the power of attorney 
the people intrust them with. The experiment was 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 37S 

perhaps never tried before, certainly not on so large a 
scale, and with so fair an opportunity for success ; but 
wise men have always foretold its utter failure, and 
pointed to the past as confirming this prophecy. Cer- 
tainly, we have human history against us, but I think 
human nature is on our side, and find no reason to 
doubt the triumph of the American idea. So I have 
taken a deep interest in politics, important not merely 
as representing the national housekeeping, but also 
the public morality, and so tending to help or hinder 
the people's success. Never failing to vote, I have yet 
kept myself out of the harness of every party ; re- 
sponsible to none and for none, I have been free to 
blame or praise the principles and the purposes of 
all, their measures and their men. Addressing such 
multitudes, most of them younger than I, in times like 
the last fourteen years, when such important interests 
came up for public adjudication, and when the great 
principles of all national morality have been solemnly 
denied by famous officials, men also of great personal 
power, who declared that human governments were 
amenable to no natural law of God, but subject only 
to the caprice of magistrate or elector — I have felt 
a profound sense of my responsibility to you as a 
teacher of religion. So I have preached many po- 
litical sermons, examining the special measures pro- 
posed, exposing the principle they rested on, and the 
consequences they must produce, and applying the les- 
sons of experience, the laws of human nature, the 
great doctrines of absolute religion, to the special con- 
duct of the American people. No doubt I have often 
wounded the feelings of many of you. Pardon me, 
my friends! if I live long I doubt not I shall do so 
again and again. You never made me your minister 



3T4* EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

to flatter, or merely to please, but to instruct and 
serve. 

Treating of politics, I must speak of the con- 
spicuous men engaged therein, when they come to die, 
for such are the idols of their respective parties. In 
America there are few objects of conventional respect 
— no permanent classes who are born to be reverenced ; 
and as men love to look up and do homage to what 
seems superior, a man of vulgar greatness, who has 
more of the sort of talent all have much of. Is sure 
to become an idol if he will but serve the passions of 
his worshipers ; so with us, a great man of that stamp 
has a more irresponsible power than elsewhere among 
civilized men ; for he takes the place of king, noble, 
and priest, and controls the public virtue more. The 
natural function of a great man is to help the little 
ones ; by this test I have endeavored to try such as I 
must needs speak of. Not responsible for their vice 
or virtue, I have sought to respresent them exactly 
as I found them, and that, too, without regard to the 
opinion of men, who only looked up and worshiped, 
not asking what. If I were an assayer of metals, I 
should feel bound to declare the character of the speci- 
mens brought before me, whether lead or silver; shall 
I be less faithful in my survey of a great man, " more 
precious than the fine gold of Ophir " ? 1 am no flat- 
terer, nor public liar-general; when such a one is 
wanted he is easily found, and may be had cheap ; and 
I cannot treat great men like great babies. So, when 
I preached on Mr. Adams, who had done the cause of 
freedom such great service, on General Taylor and 
Mr. Webster, I aimed to paint them exactly as they 
were, that their virtues might teach us, and their vices 
warn. Still further to promote the higher education 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 375 

of the people, and correct an idolatry as fatal as it is 
stupid, as dangerous to the public as it is immediately 
profitable to wily rhetoricians, I have prepared 
lectures on four great famous Americans — Franklin, 
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. The last, how- 
ever, was not delivered when my present illness laid 
me low. I wished to daguerreotype these great, noble' 
men, and place true pictures before the people. 

Perhaps no part of my public labors has been con- 
demned with more noise and violence than this attempt 
at historic truth. Certainly I did depart from the 
panegyrical custom of political and clerical eulogiz- 
ers of the famous or the wealthy dead; but I have 
confidence enough in the people of the Northern States 
to believe they will prefer plain truth to the most 
rhetorical lies. 

I have not quite disdained to turn your eyes to lit- 
tle, mean men, when set in high office, that you might 
get instruction from their folly or wickedness. So, 
when the chief magistrate of the city was notoriously 
the comrade of drunkards, and of the most infamous 
of humankind, and that of the State was celebrated 
chiefly for public and private lying, and both abused 
their office to promote their own little purposes of mis- 
chief or of gain, debauching the public virtue, as well 
as wasting the people's money — I did not fail to ad- 
vertise the fact, that you at least might learn by the 
lesson which cost the public so dear. 

6. I have preached against war, showing its enor- 
mous cost in money and men, and the havoc it makes 
of public and private virtue. A national occasion was 
not wanting; for obedient to the whip of the slave- 
power, which hag-rides the nation still, the American 
Government — not the people, nor even Congress — 



376 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

plunged us into a wicked contest with Mexico, she 
clearly in the right, we notoriously in the wrong. I 
have often spoken against war, and tried to discourage 
that " excessive lust for land," that aggressive and 
invasive spirit, which is characteristic of both the 
American and British people. It is clear that the 
strongest races will ultimately supplant the feebler, and 
take their place, as the strong grasses outroot the 
weak from the farmer's meadow. I complain not of 
this just natural law, which indeed pervades the uni- 
verse ; but the work need not be done by violence, nor 
any form of wrong. So I have preached against the 
filibustering of America, and the not less wicked 
diplomatizing and soldiering by which our parent 
across the sea accomplishes the same thing, though 
with even more harshness and cruelty. 

Yet I have not preached the doctrine of the non- 
resistants, who never allow an individual to repel 
wrong by material violence; nor that of the ultra- 
peace men, who deny a nation's right to stave off an 
invader's wickedness with the people's bloody hand. 
The wrathful emotions are also an integral part of 
humanity, and with both nations and individuals have 
an indispensable function to perform, that of self- 
defense, which, in the present state of civilization, must 
sometimes be with violence, even with shedding ag- 
gressive blood. It is against needless and wicked wars 
■ — the vast majority are such — that I have preached; 
against the abuse ambitious rulers make of the sol- 
dier's trained art to kill, and of the wrathful, defen- 
sive instincts of the multitude. In this age I think 
the people do not make war against the peaceful peo- 
ple of another land; nay, in New England, the most 
democratic country, we have too much neglected the 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 377 

military art, I fear — a mistake we may bitterly re- 
gret in that strife between the Southern habit of des- 
potism, and the Northern principle of democracy, 
which any day may take the form of civil war, and 
one day must. For America will not always attempt 
to carry a pitcher of poison on her left shoulder, and 
one of pure water on her right ; one or the other must 
soon go to the ground. 

7. I have spoken against slavery more than any 
concrete wrong, because it is the greatest of all, " the 
sum of all villainies," and the most popular, the wan- 
ton darling of the Government. I became acquainted 
with it in my early childhood, and learned to hate it 
even then, when, though I might not comprehend the 
injustice of the principle, I could yet feel the cruelty 
of the fact. I began to preach against it early, but 
used the greatest circumspection, for I knew the vul- 
gar prejudice in favor of all successful tyranny, and 
wished my few hearers thoroughly to accept the prin- 
ciple of justice, and apply it to this as to all wrongs. 
But even in the little meeting-house at West Roxbury, 
though some of the audience required no teaching in 
this matter, the very mention of American slavery as 
wicked at first offended all my hearers who had any 
connection with the Democratic party. Some said 
they could see no odds between claiming freedom for 
a negro slave, and " stealing one of our oxen," the 
right to own cattle including the right to own men; 
they thought slavery could ride behind them on the 
same pillion with " democracy," according to the cus- 
tom of their masters. But, as little by little I devel- 
oped the principle of true democracy, showing its root 
in that love of your neighbor as yourself, which Jesus 
both taught and lived, and of that eternal justice. 



378 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

which comes even to savage bosoms, and showed how 
repugnant slavery is to both — gradually all the more 
reflective and humane drew over to the side of free- 
dom; and they who at first turned their faces to the 
floor of their pews when I announced slavery as the 
theme for that day's sermon, ere many years turned on 
me eyes flashing with indignation against wrong, when 
I told the tale of our national wickedness ; they have 
since given me the heartiest sympathy in my humble 
efl'orts to moralize the opinions and practice of the 
people. 

My Friends, — Since I have been your minister, I 
have preached much on this dreadful sin of the nation, 
which now threatens to be also its ruin ; for, while in 
my youth slavery was admitted to be an evil, commer- 
cially profitable, but morally wrong, an .exceptional 
measure, which only the necessity of habit might ex- 
cuse, but which nothing could justify, of late years 
it is declared a " moral good," " the least objection- 
able form of labor," fit for Northern whites not less 
than African negroes, one of those guide-board in- 
stances which indicate the highway of national wel- 
fare. For some years slavery has been the actual first 
principle of each Federal administration; to this all 
interests must bend, all customs and statutes conform, 
and the nation's two great documents, containing our 
programme of political principles and of political pur- 
poses, must be repudiated and practically annulled; 
the Supreme Court has become only the Jesuitical 
propaganda of slavery. 

For some years, while busied with theological mat- 
ters, and with laying the metaphysic foundation of my 
own scheme, I took no public part in the anti-slav- 
ery movements outside of my own little village. But 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 379 

when I became your minister, and had a wider field to 
till, when the ambition of the slave power became more 
insolent by what it fed upon, and the North still tamer 
and more servile under the bridle and the whip of such 
as were horsed thereon, a different duty seemed quite 
clear to me. I have seldom entered your pulpit with- 
out remembering that you and I lived In a land whose 
church members are not more numerous than Its slaves, 
as many " communing with God " by bread and wine, 
so many communing with man by chains and whips ; 
and that not only the State, press, and market, but 
also the Church takes a " South-side view of slavery," 
as indeed she does of each other wickedness presently 
popular, and "of good report." Since 1845, I have 
preached against all the great invasive measures of the 
slave power, exposing their motive, the first principle 
they refer to, and showing that they are utterly hos- 
tile to that democracy which Is justice; and all tend to 
establish a despotism, which at first may be industrial 
and many-headed, as now in Louisiana, but next must 
be single-headed and military, as already in France, 
and finally must lead to national ruin, as In so many 
countries of the old world. 

In due time the Fugitive Slave Bill came up from 
seed which wicked men had sown and harrowed Into 
the Northern soil; Boston fired her hundred cannons 
with delight, and they awoke the ministers, sitting 
drowsy In their churches of commerce, mid all the 
pavements of the North, who thought an angel had 
spoke to them. Then I preached against slavery as 
never before, and defied the impudent statute, whereto 
you happily said Amen by the first clapping of hands 
which for years had welcomed a sermon in Boston; 
how could you help the natural indecorum .^^ When, 



380 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

roused by these jubilant guns, one minister, so gener- 
ous and self -devoted, too, in many a noble work, called 
on his parishioners to enforce that wicked act, which 
meant to kidnap mine, and declared that if a fugitive 
sought shelter with him he would drive him away from 
his own door; when another uttered words more no- 
torious, and yet more flagrant with avaricious inhu- 
manity, which I care not now to repeat again; and 
when the cry, " No higher law ! " went down from 
the market, and, intoned by the doctorial leaders of 
the sects, rang through so many commercial churches 
throughout the Northern land, I did not dare refuse to 
proclaim the monstrous fact as one of the unavoid- 
able effects of slavery, whose evil seed must bear fruit 
after its kind, and to gibbet the wrong before the eyes 
of the people, to whom I appealed for common jus- 
tice and common humanity. When two men, holding 
mean offices under the Federal Government, one of 
them not fit by nature to do a cruel deed, actually stole 
and kidnapped two innocent inhabitants out from your 
city of Franklin, and Hancock, and Adams, and at- 
tempted, with their unclean, ravenous jaws, to seize 
yet others, and rend the manhood out of them, I 
preached against these jackals of slavery and their in- 
human work; and have now only to lament that my 
powers of thought and speech were no more adequate 
fitly to expose the dark infamy of that foul deed, 
against which I asked alike the people's justice and 
their wrath; I knew I should not ask in vain. And 
•when a drunken bully from South Carolina, in Con- 
gress, fitly representing the first principle, if not the 
first persons of his State — where none can serve in 
even the Lower House of Assembly " unless he be 
seized in his own right of ten negro slaves " — made 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER S81 

liis assault, not less cowardly than brutal, on our noble 
senator, wounding him with worse than death, and while 
the United States attorney sought " to make murder 
safe and easy in the capital," not dreaming it would 
one day, unpunished, reach his own heart, I spoke of 
ihat matter, and showed it was the cowards of Massa- 
chusetts who drew the blow on her faithful champion, 
and that no " anodyne " could make them less than 
glad that it was struck. 

But why speak more of those sad days? Others 
may come with sterner face, not black, but red. 
However, a blessed change in public opinion now goes 
calmly on in Massachusetts, in New England, and all 
the North, spite of the sophistry and cunning of am- 
bitious men smit with the Presidential fever. The 
death of a dozen leading anti-slavery men to-day 
would not much retard it, for the ground is full of 
such. 

8. But I have preached against the errors of the 
ecclesiastic theology more than upon any other form 
of wrong, for they are the most fatal mischiefs in the 
land. The theological notion of God, man, and the 
relation between them, seems to me the greatest specu- 
lative error mankind has fallen into. Its gloomy con- 
sequences appear: — Christendom takes the Bible for 
God's Word, His last word; nothing new or different 
can ever be expected from the source of all truth, all 
justice, and all love ; the sun of righteousness will give 
no added light or heat on the cold darkness of the 
human world. From portions of this " infallible reve- 
lation," the Roman Church logically derives its des- 
potic and hideous claim to bind and loose on earth, 
to honor dead men with sainthood, or to rack and bum 
with all the engines mechanic fancy can invent, or 



382 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

priestly cruelty apply ; and hereafter to bless eternally, 
or else for ever damn. Hence, both Protestant and 
Catholic logically derive their imperfect, wrathful De- 
ity, who creates men to torment them in an endless hell, 
" paved with the skulls of infants not a span long," 
whereinto the vast majority of men are, by the million, 
trodden down for everlasting agony, at which the elect 
continually rejoice. Hence, they derive their devil, 
absolutely evil, that ugly wolf whom God lets loose 
into His fold of lambs ; hence their total depravity, and 
many another dreadful doctrine which now the best 
of men blind their brothers' eyes withal, and teach 
their children to distrust the infinite perfection which 
is nature's God, dear Father and Mother to all that is. 
Hence clerical sceptics learn to deny the validity of 
their own superior faculties, and spin out the cob- 
webs of sophistry, wherewith they surround the field 
of religion, and catch therein unwary men. Hence the 
Jews, the Mahometans, the Mormons, draw their idea 
of woman, and their right to substitute such gross con- 
junctions for the natural marriage of one to one. 
There the slaveholder finds the chief argument for 
his ownership of men, and in Africa or New England, 
kidnaps the weak, his mouth drooHng with texts from 
" the authentic word of God " ; nay, there the rheto- 
rician finds reason for shooting an innocent man who 
but righteously seeks that freedom which nature de- 
clares the common birthright of mankind. It has 
grieved me tenderly to see all Christendom make the 
Bible its fetish, and so lose the priceless value of that 
free religious spirit, which communing at first hand 
with God, wrote its grand pages, or poured out its 
magnificent beatitudes. 

Christendom contains the most intellectual nations 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 383 

of the earth, all of them belonging to the dominant 
Caucasian race, and most of them occupying regions 
Tery friendly to the development of the highest facul- 
ties of man. Theirs, too, is the superior machinery of 
civilization, political, ecclesiastical, domestic, social. 
Nowhere on earth does the clerical class so connect it- 
self with the innermost of man. Christendom is the 
bold leader in all intellectual affairs — arts of peace 
and war, science, literature, skill to organize and ad- 
minister mankind. But yet the Christian has no moral 
superiority over the Jews, the Mahometans, the 
Brahmans, the Buddhists, at all commensurate with 
this intellectual power. In the sum of private and 
public virtues, the Turk is before the Christian Greek. 
For 1500 years the Jews, a nation scattered and peeled, 
and exposed to most degrading influences, in true re- 
ligion have been above the Christians. In temper- 
ance, chastity, honesty, justice, mercy, are the leading 
nations of Christendom before the South-Asiatics, the 
Chinese, the islanders of Japan ? Perhaps so — but 
have these " Christians " a moral superiority over those 
" heathens " equal to their mental superiority ? It is 
notorious they have not. Why is this so, when these 
Christians worship a man whose religion was love to 
God and love to men, and who would admit to heaven 
only for righteousness, and send to hell only for lack 
of it? Because they worship him, reject the natural 
goodness he relied upon, and trust in the " blood of 
Christ which maketh free from all sin." It is this 
false theology, with its vicarious atonement, salvation 
without morality or piety, only by belief in absurd 
doctrines, which has bewitched the leading nations of 
the earth into such practical mischief. A false Idea 
has controlled the strongest spiritual faculty, leading 



384 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

men to trust in " imputed righteousness," and under- 
value personal virtue. Self-denying missionaries visit 
many a far-off land " to bring the heathens to Christ." 
Small good comes of it; but did they teach industry, 
thrift, letters, honesty, temperance, justice, mercy, 
with rational ideas of God and man, what a conversion 
there would be of the Gentiles ! Two and thirty thou- 
sand Christian ministers are there in the United States, 
all " consecrated to Christ " ; many of them are able 
men, earnest and devoted, but, their eyes hood-winked, 
and their hands chained by their theology, what do 
they bring to pass? They scarce lessen any vice of 
the State, the press, or the market. They are to " save 
souls from the wrath of God." 

I have preached against the fundamental errors of 
this well-compacted theologic scheme, showing the con- 
sequences which follow thence, and seldom entered 
your pulpit without remembering slavery, the great 
sin of America, and these theological errors, the sacra- 
mental mistake of Christendom. But I have never for- 
gotten the great truths this theology contains, inval- 
uable to the intellect, the conscience, the heart and soul. 
I have tried to preserve them all, with each good in- 
stitution which the Church, floating over the ruins of 
an elder world, has borne across that deluge, and set 
down for us where the dove of peace has found rest 
for the sole of her foot, and gathered her olive-branch 
to show that those devouring waters are dried up from 
the face of the earth. To me the name of Christianity 
is most exceeding dear, significant of so great a man 
and of such natural emotions, ideas, and actions, as 
are of priceless value to mankind. I know well the 
errors, also, of the doubters and denlers, who in aU 
ages have waged war against the superstitious the- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 385 

ology of their times, and pulled down what they could 
not replace with better. I have not sat in the seat of 
the scornful ; and while I warned men against the 
snare of the priest, I would not suffer them to fall into 
the mocker's pit. I have taken exquisite delight in 
the grand words of the Bible, putting it before all 
other sacred literature of the whole ancient world; to 
me it is more dear when I regard them not as the 
miracles of God, but as the work of earnest men, who 
did their uttermost with holy heart. I love to read 
the great truths of religion set forth in the mag- 
nificent poetry of psalmist and prophet, and the hu- 
mane lessons of the Hebrew peasant, who summed up 
the prophets and the law in one word of love^ and set 
forth man's daily duties in such true and simple speech. 
As a master, the Bible were a tyrant ; as a help, I have 
not time to tell its worth; nor has a sick man speech 
for that, nor need I now for my public and private 
teachings sufficiently abound in such attempts. But 
yet, to me the great men of the Bible are worth more 
than all their words ; he that was greater than the 
temple, whose soul burst out its walls, is also greater 
than the testament, but yet no master over you or me, 
however humble men. 

In theological matters my preaching has been posi- 
tive, much more than negative, controversial only to 
create; I have tried to set forth the truths of nat- 
ural religion, gathered from the world of matter and 
of spirit; I rely on these great ideas as the chief 
means for exciting the religious feelings, and promot- 
ing religious deeds ; I have destroyed only what seemed 
pernicious, and that I might build a better structure in 
its place. 

Of late years a new form of atheism — the ideal, 
XII— 25 



386 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

once thought impossible — has sprung up ; perhaps 
Germany is its birth-place, though France and Eng- 
land seem equally its home. It has its representatives 
in America. Besides, the pantheists tell us of their 
God, who is but the sum-total of the existing universe 
of matter and of mind, immanent in each, but tran- 
scending neither, imprisoned in the two ; blind, planless, 
purposeless, without consciousness, or will, or love ; de- 
pendent upon the shifting phenomena of finite matter 
and of finite mind, finite itself; a continual becoming 
this or that, not absolute being, self-subsistent and 
eternally the same perfection ; their God is only law, 
the constant mode of operation of objective and uncon- 
scious force ; yet is it better than the churchman's God, 
who is caprice alone, subjective, arbitrary, inconstant, 
and with more hate than love. I have attempted ta 
deal with the problem of the pantheist and the atheist, 
treating both as any other theological opponents ; I 
have not insulted them with harsh names, nor found 
occasion to impute dishonorable motives to such as 
deny what is dearer than life to me ; nor attempted to 
silence them with texts from sacred books ; nor to en- 
tangle them in ecclesiastic or metaphysic sophistries ; 
nor to scare with panic terrors, easily excited in an 
atheistic or a Christian's heart. I have simply re- 
ferred them to the primal instincts of human nature, 
and their spontaneous intuition of the divine, the just, 
and the immortal ; then, to what science gathered from 
the world of matter, and the objective history of man 
in his progressive development of individual and of so- 
cial power. I have shown the causes which lead to 
honest bigotry within the Christian Church, and to 
honest atheism without; I hope I have done injustice 
neither to this nor that. But it was a siomificant fact 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 387 

I could not fail to make public, that, while the chief 
doctors of commercial divinity in the great American 
trading towns, and their subservient colleges, denied 
the higher law, and with their Bibles laid humanity 
flat before the kidnappers in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, 
New York, and Boston, the so-called atheists and 
pantheists over all the Northern land revered the in- 
stinctive justice of the soul, and said, " Thou shalt not 
steal, nor lie, thou shalt do no wrong; 'tis Nature's 
self forbids ! " 

Preaching such doctrines in a place so public, and 
applying them to life, I am not surprised at the hos- 
tility I have met with from the various sects. In no 
country would it have been less, or tempered more 
sweetly ; no, nor in any age ; for certainly I have de- 
parted from the fundamental principle of the Catholics 
and the Protestants, denied the fact of a miraculous 
revelation, given exclusively to Jews and Christians, 
denied the claim to supernatural authority, and utterly 
broke with that vicariousness which puts an alleged 
revelation in place of common sense, and the blood of 
a crucified Jew instead of excellence of character. In 
the least historic of the New Testament Gospels it is 
related that Jesus miraculously removed the congenital 
blindness of an adult man, and because he made known 
the fact that his eyes were thus opened, and told the 
cause, the Pharisees cast him out of their synagogue. 
What this mythic story relates as an exceptional meas- 
ure of the Pharisees, seems to have founded a universal 
principle of the Christian Church, which cannot bear 
the presence of a man who, divinely sent, has washed 
in the pool of Siloam, and returned seeing and telling 
why. 



388 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

I knew at the beginning what I must expect; that 
at first men younger than I, who had not learned over 
much, would taunt me with my youth ; that others, not 
scholarly, would charge me with lack of learning com- 
petent for my task; and cautious old men, who did 
not find it convenient to deny my facts, or answer my 
arguments, would cry out, " This young man must be 
put down ! " and set their venerable popular feet in 
that direction. Of course I have made many mistakes, 
and could not expect a theologic opponent, and still 
less a personal enemy, to point them out with much 
delicacy, or attempt to spare my feelings ; theological 
warfare is not gentler than political or military ; even 
small revolutions are not mixed with rose-water. The 
amount of honest misunderstanding, of wilful mis- 
representing, of lying, and of malignant abuse, has 
not astonished me; after the first few months it did 
not grieve me; human nature has a wide margin of 
oscillation, and accommodates itself to both torrid and 
frigid zones. But I have sometimes been a little sur- 
prised at the boldness of some of my critics, whose mis- 
takes proved their courage extended beyond their in- 
formation. An acquaintance with the historic devel- 
opment of mankind, a knowledge of Greek and He- 
brew, familiarity with the metaphysic thought of the 
human race, is certainly no moral merit; but in the- 
ologic discussions it is a convenience which some of my 
opponents have not always paid quite sufficient respect 
to, though they were not thereby hindered from pass- 
ing swift judgment. Criticism is the easiest of all 
arts, or the most difficult of all. 

It did not surprise me that other ministers. Unita- 
rian and Trinitarian, should refuse to serve with me 
on the committee of a college or a school, to attend 



I 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 689 

the same funeral or wedding, to sit on the same bench 
at a public meeting, to remain in the same public 
apartment, and trade at the same book-store, to re- 
turn my salutation in the street, or reply to my letters ; 
that they should invent and spread abroad falsehoods 
intended to ruin me; but I confess I have sometimes 
been astonished that such men " could not see any sign 
of honesty, of love of truth, of philanthropy, or re- 
ligion," in my writings or my life, but must set down 
all to " vanity and love of the praises of men." But 
" it is fit to be instructed, even by an enemy." Let 
you and me learn from ours to hate those theological 
doctrines which can so blind the eyes and harden the 
hearts of earnest, self-denying men; let us not imitate 
the sophistry and bigotry we may have suffered from, 
and certainly have been exposed to. 

I have found most friendly recognition where I did 
not expect it. Men with adverse theological opinions 
have testified to the honest piety they thought they 
found in my writings, and joined with me in various 
practical works of humanity, leaving me to settle the 
abstract questions of divinity with the Divine him- 
self. Indeed, I never found it necessary to agree with 
a man's theology before I could ride in his omnibus or 
buy his quills. No two Unitarian ministers, I think, 
differ more in their theology than Rev. James Freeman 
Clarke and I, but for twenty years there has been the 
warmest friendship between us; that noble man and I 
have gone hand in hand to many of the most important 
philanthropies of the age ; and I think he will not be 
offended by this public recognition of our affectional 
intimacy. I could say similar things of other men, 
whom I have not named, but might thereby scare their 
timid reputation from its nest, and addle their hopes of 
future usefulness. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

Besides, I have found kindly and generous critics in 
America, and still more in England and Germany, 
who did me perhaps more than justice, while they hon- 
estly pointed out what they must regard as my faults. 
Though I have been written and spoken against more 
than any American not connected with political par- 
ties, yet, on the whole, I do not complain of the treat- 
ment I have received ; all I asked was a hearing ; that 
has been abundantly granted. You opened wide the 
doors, my opponents rang the bell all Saturday night, 
and Sunday morning the audience was there. I think 
no other country would allow me such liberty of speech ; 
I fear not even England, which has yet so generously 
welcomed every free thought. 

Of late years the hatred against me seems to have 
abated somewhat ; old enemies relaxed their brows a lit- 
tle, and took back, or else denied, their former calum- 
nies ; nay, had kind words and kind deeds for me and 
mine. " Let bygones be bygones," is a good old rule. 

"The fondest, the fairest, the truest that met. 
Have still found the need to forgive and forget." 

I think few men in America have found sympathy in 
trouble from a greater variety of persons than I, in 
my present disappointment and illness, from men and 
women of all manner of ecclesiastical connections. I 
could not always thank them by private letters, but I 
need not say how grateful their kindly words have been, 
for — I may as well confess it — after all, I am not 
much of a fighter ; my affections are developed far bet- 
ter than my intellect. It may be news to the public; 
to you it is but too well known. 

Yet let it not surprise you that in some quarters this 
theologic odium continues still, and shows itself in 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER S91 

** revival meetings " by public prayers that God would 
go to my study, and confound me there so that I 
could not write my sermon; or meet me in your pul- 
pit, and put a hook in my jaws so that I could not 
speak ; or else remove me out of the world.^ Such pe- 
titions, finding abundant Biblical example, are not sur- 
prising when they come from such places, on such oc- 
casions, and from men whose mind and conscience are 
darkened by the dreadful theology that still haunts 
many such places. But other instances must find a 
different explanation. Less than two years ago, the 
senior class in the Cambridge Divinity School, consist- 
ing, I think, of but four pupils, invited me to deliver 
the customary address before them and the public, the 
Sunday before their graduation. The theological 
faculty, consisting of three Unitarian doctors of di- 
vinity, interposed their veto, and forbid me from speak- 
ing; such a prohibition, I think, had never been made 
before. These doctors were not ignorant men, or 
bigoted, they attend no " revival meetings," but, 
speaking intellectually, they belong among the most 
enlightened scholars in America ; none of them " was 
ever accused of believing too much " ; yet they saw fit 
to offer me the greatest ecclesiastical, academical, and 
personal insult in their professional power, in the most 
public manner, and that, too, at a time when I was 
just recovering from severe illness, and fluttering 
'twixt life and death — the scrutinizing physician 
telling me the chances were equally divided between the 
two; I could only stand in the pulpit to preach by 
holding on to the desk with one hand while I lifted 
the other up. Others might have expected such treat- 
ment from these men; I confess, my friends, that I 
did not. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

Since my present illness began, some of my theolog- 
ical foes have publicly to the world, and privately to 
me, expressed their delight that I am not Hkely to trou- 
ble them much longer; in my present feebleness they 
read the answer to their prayers for my removal. It 
was the Psalmist's petition, " Let not mine enemies 
triumph over me 1 " But I shall utter none such. If 
I fall and die, let " mine enemies " rejoice as much as 
they will at the consequent thought that there is one 
feeble voice the less, rebuking the vice of the press, the 
State, the market, and the Church, to speak a word for 
truth, freedom, justice, and natural religion; let them 
be glad there is one weak arm the less reaching out 
help to the poor, the drunken, the ignorant, the har- 
lot, the felon, and the slave; let them thank God for 
the premature decrepitude of my voice, the silence of 
my study, where worms perchance devour my books, 
more dear even than costly ; let them find " answer to 
our prayers " in the sorrow of my personal friends — 
there are now many such — in the keen distress of 
my intimates, and the agony of my wife; I complain 
nothing thereat. Every tree must bear after its own 
kind, not another, and their " religion " must yield 
such fruits. Let them triumph in these results, and 
thank their God that He has " interposed," and thus 
granted their petition; it is small satisfaction com- 
pared with what they hope for in the next life, where, 
as their theology teaches, the joy of the elect in heaven 
will be enhanced by looking down into hell, and behold- 
ing the agony of their former neighbors and friends, 
husband or wife, nay, their own children also, and 
remembering that such suffering is endless, " and the 
smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and 
ever." Let them triumph in this ; but let them ex- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 393 

pect no other or greater result to follow from my 
death. For to the success of the great truths I have 
taught, it is now but of the smallest consequence 
whether I preach in Boston and all the lyceums of the 
North, or my body crumbles in some quiet, nameless 
grave. They are not my truths. I am no great man 
whom the world hinges on ; nor can I settle the fate 
of a single doctrine by my authority. Humanity is 
rich in personalities, and a man no larger than I will 
not long be missed in the wide field of theology and 
religion. For immediately carrying a special measure, 
and for helping this or that, a single man is sometimes 
of great value ; the death of the general is the loss of 
the battle, perhaps the undoing of a State ; but after a 
great truth of humanity is once set a-going, it is in 
the charge of mankind, through whom it first came 
from God; it cannot perish by any man's death. 
Neither State, nor press, nor market, nor Church, can 
ever put it down ; it will drown the water men pour on 
it, and quench their hostile fire. Cannot the Bible 
teach its worshipers that a grave is no dungeon to shut 
up truth in ; and that death, who slays alike the priest 
and the prophet, bows his head before her, and passes 
harmless by.f* To stone Stephen did not save the 
church of the Pharisees. A live man may harm his 
own cause ; a dead one cannot defile his clean immortal 
doctrines with unworthy hands. 

In these tropic waters not far off, in time of strife, 
on a dark night, but towards morning, an English 
ship-of-war once drew near what seemed a hostile ves- 
sel under sail; she hailed the stranger, who answered 
not, then hailed again, no answer, then fired a shot 
across the saucy bows; but still there was no reply; 
next fired at her, amidships, but got not a word in re- 



394 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

turn. Finally the man-of-war cleared for action, be- 
gan battle in earnest, serving the guns with British 
vigor, but found no return, save the rattle of shot 
rebounding and falling back into the heedless sea. 
Daylight presently came with tropic suddenness, and 
the captain found he had spent his powder in batter- 
ing a great rock in the ocean. So, many a man has 
fought long against a truth which he fancied was but 
a floating whim, bound to yield to his caprice ; but, at 
last, the dawning light has shown him it was no passing 
ship, of timber and cordage and canvas, driven by the 
wind and tossed by the undulations of the sea, but a 
sail-rock, resting on the foundations of the world, and 
amendable neither to the men-of-war that sailed in the 
wind, nor yet to the undulation of the sea whereon they 
came and went. It is one thing to rejoice at the sick- 
ness and death of a short-lived heretic, but it is an- 
other and a little different, to alter the constitution of 
the universe, and put down a fact of spontaneous hu- 
man consciousness, which also is a truth of God. 

When I first came amongst you, and lived in a trad- 
ing town where a great variety of occupations lay 
spread out before me all the time, and preached to 
such crowds of men as offered a wide diversity of na- 
ture, character, and conduct, I found not only an 
opportunity to work, but also to learn and grow. You 
say I have taught you much ; I hope it is so, but you 
have been a large part of your own schooling, for I 
have also learned much from you, the audience has al- 
ways furnished a large part of the sermon and the 
prayer. I have received much direct instruction, and 
that in matters of deep concern, from some of you, by 
hearing your words and looking at your lives ; the in- 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 395 

direct help to my power of thought and speech, I fear 
you would hardly credit should I attempt to tell. It 
is enough to say now, that amongst you I have found 
men and women, often in quite humble stations, who 
have added new elements of both strength and beauty 
to my notion of what constitutes a " glorious human 
creature," in particular excellencies their actual sur-' 
passing my ideal. I have been a learner quite as much 
as a teacher; indeed, out of nearly a thousand ser- 
mons I have written, I think there are not five and 
twenty which are not also steps in my own development, 
studies I have learned by, quite as much as lessons you 
have been taught with. 

To me, human life in all its forms, individual and 
aggregate, is a perpetual wonder; the flora of the 
earth and sea is full of beauty and of mystery which 
science seeks to understand; the fauna of land and 
ocean is not less wonderful ; the world which holds them 
both, and the great universe that folds it on every side, 
are still more wonderful, complex, and attractive, to 
the contemplating mind. But the universe of human 
life, with its peculiar worlds of outer sense and inner 
soul, the particular faunas and floras which therein find 
a home, are still more complex, wonderful, and attrac- 
tive; and the laws which control it seem to me more 
amazing than the mathematic principles that explain 
the celestial mechanics of the outward world. The 
cosmos of matter seems little compared to this cosmos 
of immortal and progressive man; it is my continual 
study, discipline, and delight. Oh, that some young 
genius would devise the " novum organum " of hu- 
manity, determine the " principia " thereof, and with 
deeper than mathematic science, write out the formulas 
of the human universe, the celestial mechanics of man- 
kind. 



396 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

In your busy, bustling town, with its queerly min- 
gled, heterogeneous population, and its great diversity 
of work, I soon learned to see the unity of human life 
under all this variety of circumstances and outward 
condition. It is easy for a simple-hearted man, stand- 
ing on a central truth, to reduce them all to one com- 
mon denomination of humanity, and ascertain the 
relative value of individuals in this comparative moral- 
ity. The huckster, with a basket, where apples, pea- 
nuts, candy, and other miscellaneous small stores are 
huddled together, is a small merchant; the merchant 
with his warehouse, his factory, or bank, his ships on 
many a sea, is a great huckster; both buy to sell, and 
sell to gain ; the odds is quantative, not in kind, but in 
bulk. The cunning lawyer, selling his legal knowl- 
edge and forensic skill to promote a client's gainful 
wickedness; the tricksy harlot, letting out her person 
to a stranger's unholy lust; the deceitful minister, 
prostituting his voice and ecclesiastical position to 
make some popular sin appear decent and Christian, 
" accordant with the revealed word of God " — all 
stand in the same column of my religious notation. In 
the street I see them all pass by, each walking in a 
vain show, in different directions, but all consilient to 
the same end. 

So, the ambitious vanities of life all seem of nearly 
the same value when laid side by side on this table of 
exchange. The poetess, proud of her superiority over 
other " silly women " in the " vision and the faculty 
divine," or in but the small " accomplishment of 
verse " ; the orator, glorying in his wondrous art, 
longer than other men to hold the up-looking multitude 
with his thread of speech, and thereby pour his 
thought or will into the narrow vials of so many minds ; 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER S97 

and the scavenger, who boasts that he " can sweep 
round a lamp-post better than any man in the gang " 
' — all seem alike to an eye that looks beneath and 
above the rippling tide of phenomenal actions, learn- 
ing its whither and its whence, and knowing the un- 
seen causes which control this many-billowed sea of 
life. The diamonds of many-skirted Empress Eu- 
genie at Versailles, and the Attleborough jewelry of 
the bare-footed charwoman Bridget, at Clove Place, are 
symbols of the same significance, and probably of the 
same value to their respective occupants. The man 
not winged with talent, whom a political party cranes 
up to some official eminence he could not reach by the 
most assiduous crawling; and the dawdling woman, 
who can make neither bread to eat nor clothes to wear, 
nor yet order any household even of only two, whom 
an idle hand, and a pinkish cheek, and a lolling tongue, 
have fastened to another, but bearded fool — these 
seem wonderfully alike to me ; and I say to both, " May 
God Almighty have mercy on your souls ! " So, the 
effort after nobleness of character is ever the same, 
clad in whatever dress; the black washerwoman, on 
Negro Hill, as, with a frowzy broom, a mop, and a 
tub or two, she keeps the wolf away from her unfa- 
thered babies, all fugitives from slavery, and thence 
looks up to that dear God whom she so feels within her 
heart a very present help in her hour of need, which is 
her every hour — to me seems as grand as Paul preach- 
ing on Mars Hill to the Athenian senators; nay, not 
less glorious than Jesus of Nazareth on his mountain, 
uttering blessed Beatitudes to those thousands who 
paused in their pilgrimage towards Jerusalem, to look 
and listen to one greater than the temple, and destined 
to control men's hearts when that city, compactly built, 



398 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

has not stone left on stone. The thoughtful eye, like 
the artistic hand, invests with the same magnificence 
the Hebrew preachers and the negro washerwoman, 
borrowing the outward purple from the glory within. 
It is the same great problem of duty which is to be 
wrought out by all — huckster, merchant, lawyer, har- 
lot, minister, poetess, orator, Eugenie, and Bridget, un- 
worthy officer, and idle, helpless wife, Dinah on Negro 
Hill, Paul at the Areopagus, and Jesus on Mount Ta- 
bor; and it is not of such future consequence to us 
as men fancy, whether the tools of our work be a basket 
or a warehouse, a mob or a cross ; for the Divine Jus- 
tice asks the same question of each, " What hast thou 
done with thy gifts and opportunities ? " Feeling the 
democracy of mankind, and preaching it in many a 
form, I have learned to estimate the worth of men by 
the quality of their character, and the amount of their 
service rendered to mankind. So of each I ask but 
two questions, " What are you.'' What do you do.? " 
The voluntary beggar in rags, and the voluntary beg- 
gar in ruffles, alike answer, " Naught." 

In my preaching I have used plain, simple words, 
sometimes making what I could not find ready, and 
counted nothing unclean, because merely common. In 
philosophic terms, and in all which describes the inner 
consciousness, our Saxon speech is rather poor, and 
so I have been compelled to gather from the Greek or 
Roman stock forms of expressions which do not grow 
on our homely and familiar tree, and hence, perhaps, 
have sometimes scared you with " words of learned 
length." But I have always preferred to use, when 
fit, the every-day words in which men think and talk, 
scold, make love, and pray, so that generous-hearted 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 399 

philosophy, clad in a common dress, might more easily 
become familiar to plain-clad men. It is with cus- 
tomary tools that we work easiest and best, especially 
when use has made the handles smooth. 

Illustrations I have drawn from most familiar things 
which are before all men's eyes, in the fields, the streets, 
the shop, the kitchen, parlor, nursery, or school ; and 
from the literature best known to all — the Bible, the 
newspapers, the transient speech of eminent men, the 
talk of common people in the streets, from popular 
stories, schoolbooks, and nursery rhymes. Some of. 
you have censured me for this freedom and homeliness, 
alike in illustration and in forms of speech, desiring. 
*' more elegant and sonorous language," ** illustrations* 
derived from elevated and conspicuous objects," " from 
dignified personalities." A good man, who was a; 
farmer in fair weather and a shoemaker in foul, could 
not bear to have a plough or a lapstone mentioned in 
my sermon — to me picturesque and poetic objects, as 
well as familiar — but wanted " kings and knights," 
which I also quickly pleased him with. But for this 
I must not only plead the necessity of my nature, de- 
lighting in common things, trees, grass, oxen, and 
stars, moonlight on the water, the falling rain, the 
ducks and hens at this moment noisy under my win- 
dow, the gambols and prattle of children, and the 
common work of blacksmiths, wheelwrights, painters, 
hucksters, and traders of all sorts; but I have also on, 
my side the example of all the great masters of speech 
— save only the French, who disdain all common 
things, as their aristocratic but elegant literature was 
bred in a court, though rudely cradled elsewhere, nay, 
born of rough loins — of poets like Homer, Dante, 
Shakespeare, Goethe, of Hebrew David, and of Roman 



400 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

Horace; of philosophers like Socrates and Locke; of 
preachers like Luther, Latimer, Barrow, Butler, and 
South ; nay, elegant Jeremy Taylor, " the Shakespeare 
of divines " owes half his beauty to these weeds of 
nature, which are choicest flowers when set in his 
artistic garden. But one need not go beyond Jesus 
of Nazareth and the first three Gospels to learn great 
lessons in the art of speech; for in him you not only 
reverence the genius for religion, which intuitively sees 
divine truth and human duty, but wonder also at the 
power of speech that tells its tale as deliverly as the 
blackbird sings or the water runs down hill. Besides, 
to me common life is full of poetry and pictorial love- 
liness ; spontaneously portrayed, its events will fill my 
mind as one by one the stars come out upon the even- 
ing sky, like them each one " a beauty and a mys- 
tery." It is therefore a necessity of my nature that 
the sermon should publicly reflect to you what pri- 
vately hangs over it with me, and the waters rained 
out of my sky when cloudy, should give back its ordi- 
nary stars when clear. Yet, for the same reason, I 
have also fetched illustrations from paths of literature 
and science, less familiar perhaps to most of you, when 
they, better than aught else, would clear a troubled 
thought ; so, in my rosary of familiar beads, I have 
sometimes strung a pearl or two which science brought 
from oceanic depths, or fixed thereon the costly gems 
where ancient or modern art has wrought devices dearer 
than the precious stone itself. 

Using plain words and familiar illustrations, and 
preaching also on the greatest themes, I have not feared 
to treat philosophic matters with the rigor of science, 
and never thought I should scare you with statistic 
factsi which are the ultimate expression of a great 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 401 

principle doing its work by a constant mode of opera- 
tion, nor by psychologic analysis, or metaphysical 
demonstration. Ministers told me I was " preaching 
over the heads of the people ;" I only feared to preach 
below their feet, or else aside from their ears. Thus 
handling great themes before attentive men, I have 
also dared to treat them long, for I read the time not 
on the dial, but the audience. I trust you will pardon 
the offense, which I perhaps shall not repeat. 

My Friends, — I said that in my early life I feared 
the temptations that beset the lawyer's path, and, 
trembling at the moral ruin, which seemed so imminent, 
turned to the high ecclesiastic road. Alas ! the peril is 
only different, not less. The lawyer is drawn to one 
kind of wickedness, the minister to another; their 
sophistry and cunning are about equal, only in the 
one case it is practised in the name of " law," and for 
an obvious " worldly end," and in the other in the name 
of " gospel," and professedly to secure " salvation." 
Learning to distinguish sound from significance, I 
have not found the moral tone of ministers higher 
than that of lawyers, their motives purer, their be- 
havior more honest, or their humanity more prompt 
and wide, only their alms are greater in proportion to 
their purse. In choosing the clerical, not the legal 
profession, I think I encountered quite as much pe- 
culiar peril as I shunned. The gospel-mill of the min- 
ister is managed with as much injustice as the law-mill 
of the other profession. 

It is not for me to say I have succeeded in keeping 

any portion of my youthful vow. Yet one thing I 

am sure of; I never appealed to a mean motive nor 

used an argument I did not think both just and true ; 
XII— 26 



402 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

1 have employed no conscious sophistry, nor ever dis- 
guised my ignorance. 

Together we have tried some things, which did not 
prosper, and so came to an end. 

We attempted Sunday afternoon meetings, for free 
discussion of what pertains to rehgion. I hoped much 
good from that experiment ; yet it was made not only a 
vanity, but also a vexation of spirit, by a few outsiders, 
who talked much, while they had little or nothing to 
say ; there could be no wisdom where their voices were 
heard. 

Next we tried lectures on the Bible, Sunday after- 
noons, which continued during the wintry half of sev- 
eral years. I gave six general lectures on the origin 
and history of the Old and New Testaments, and then 
turned to the criticism and interpretation of the sev- 
eral books of the latter. With Tischendorf's edition 
of the original text in my hand, I translated the three 
Synoptic Gospels, the four undoubted Epistles of Paul, 
the Acts, and the " Johannic " writings — Revelation, 
Gospel, Epistles — explaining each book, verse, and 
word, as well as I could. I intended to treat all the 
other canonical and apocryphal books of the New and 
Old Testaments in the same way. But either the mat- 
ter was too learned, or the manner too dull, for it did 
not succeed well, bringing a class of but a few scores 
of persons. This experiment was abandoned when we 
removed to the Music Hall, and had no place for an 
afternoon meeting. 

I have long meditated other things, which might, 
perhaps, be helpful to select classes of young men and 
women ; but as they are now not likely to be more than 
thoughts, I will not name them here. 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 403 

Last year you organized your Fraternity : the move- 
ment was spontaneous on your part, not originating 
in any hint of mine. Though I had long wanted such 
an association, so various in its purposes, and so liberal 
in its plan, I did not venture to propose it, preferring 
it should come without my prompting in 1858, rather 
than merely by it ten years before. A minister as 
sure of the confidence of his hearers as I am of yours, 
is often a little inclined to be invasive, and thrust his 
personality on that of his congregation, making his 
will take the place of their common sense ; hence many 
trees of clerical planting fail, because they originate 
only with the minister, and root but into him. I hope 
great good from this Fraternity, and have laid out 
much work for myself to do with its help. To men- 
tion but one thing, I intended this season to deliver 
before it ten easy lectures on the first three centuries 
of the Christian era, and show how the Christianity of 
the Christians, alas ! not the more humane and natural 
religion of Jesus, developed itself in ideas — the doc- 
trines of the Biblical and patristic books ; in institutions 
— the special churches, each a republic at first, with 
individual variety of action, but gradually degener- 
ating into a despotic monarchy, with only ecclesiastical 
unity of action ; and finally, after compromising with 
the Hebrew and classic schemes, how it became the 
organized religion of the civilized world, a new force 
in it both for good and evil, the most powerful organ- 
ization on earth. In my sleepless nights last autumn, 
I sketched out the plan and arranged the chief de- 
tails; but it must now pass away, like other less sys- 
tematic visions of a sick man in his sleep. 

When a young man, it was a part of my original 
plan to leave the practical work of continual preach- 



404i EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

ing, a little before I should be fifty years old, and 
devote the residue of my life to publishing works which 
I hoped might be of permanent value, separating the 
two periods by a year or two of travel in the American 
tropics and the Mediterranean countries of the Old 
World; so I thought I might be most useful to man- 
kind, for I did not anticipate or desire long life, and 
did not originally rate very high my ability to affect 
the mass of men by direct word of mouth, and made 
no pretensions to that most popular of intellectual 
attainments, that eloquence, which, like other beauty, 
is at once a pleasure and a power, delighting whom it 
compels. But, when I found the scholarly class more 
unfriendly than the multitude, I began to think I had 
chosen the wrong audience to address; that it was the 
people, not the scholars, who were to lead in philosophic 
thought ; and when you gave me a chance to be heard 
in Boston, and I preached on from year to year, great 
crowds of men, who were not readers but workers in 
the week, coming and continuing to listen to the long- 
est of sermons, wherein great subjects were treated 
without respect to popular prejudice, ecclesiastical, po- 
litical, or social, and that, too, without sparing the 
severest attention of the hearers; when I found these 
multitudes seemed to comprehend the abstractest rea- 
soning, and truths most universal, and appeared to be 
instructed, set free, and even elevated to higher hopes 
both here and hereafter, and to noble character; when, 
with all my directness of homely speech, I found myself 
welcome in most of the lecture halls between the Missis- 
sippi and the Penobscot, and even beyond them, having 
thence two or three hundred invitations a year ; when the 
national crisis became nearer and more threatening, and 
I saw my sentiments and ideas visibly passing into the 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 405 

opinion and the literature of the people, and thence 
coming out in the legislation of New England and the 
other Northern States — I thought it not quite time 
to withdraw, and my early purposes were a little 
shaken. I intended to continue some ten years more 
in severe practical work, till about sixty, then retire, 
not to lie down in the grave like a camel under his 
load at night, but hoping to enjoy a long, quiet au- 
tumn of twenty years or so, when I might accomplish 
my philosophic and literary works, and mow up as 
provender for future time what I had first raised as 
green grass, and then mowed down to make into sound 
hay, but have now left, alas ! either strewn where it 
grew, or but loosely raked together, not yet carted 
into safe bams for the long winter, or even stacked up 
and sheltered against immediate spoiling by a sudden 
rain in harvest. 

Besides, I felt quickened for practical work by the 
great exigencies of the nation, the importance of the 
fight already going on between despotism on one side, 
with its fugitive slave bills. New England kidnappers 
and sophists, in bar or pulpit, and democracy on the 
other, with its self-evident truths, inalienable rights, 
and vast industrial and educational developments — a 
battle not yet understood, but destined to grow hot and 
red ere long — and by the confidence I have always 
felt in the ultimate triumph of the right and true, the 
beautiful and good. Moreover, I was encouraged in 
my course by the soundness and vigor of my bodily 
frame, not stout, perhaps, and strong, but capable of 
much and long-continued work of the most various 
kinds, not tiring soon, nor easily made ill, but quick 
recovering from both fatigue and sickness ; and by the 
long average life of six generations of American fa- 



406 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

thers and mothers. But I have now learned by experi- 
ence that it is not wise to cherish wide personal hopes 
in a narrow life, or seek to make an apple-tree larger 
than the orchard. 

For some years, I have been warned that I was not 
only spending the full income of life, but encroaching 
a little on the capital stock. But what wise man even 
is always wise? The duties were so urgent, the call 
for help so imploring, the labor at once so delightful 
in its process and so prophetic of good results, and I 
felt such confidence in my bodily power and ancestral 
longevity, that I did not sufficiently heed the gentle 
admonition ; till, last year, in March, nature at once 
gave way, and I was compelled to yield to a necessity 
above my will. I need not tell the fluctuations in my 
health since then, rather, my friends, let me again 
thank you for the prompt and generous sympathy you 
gave then and ever since. 

Immediately after my present illness, I left your pul- 
pit empty for a day. You wrote me a letter signed 
by many a dear, familiar name, and but for the haste, 
I know it had been enriched with the signatures of 
all; it was dated at Boston, January 11th. Your af- 
fection wrote the Hnes, and a kindred wisdom kept them 
from me till I was able to bear this unexpected testi- 
monial of your sympathy and love. On Sunday, the 
6th of March, while you were listening to — alas ! I 
know not whom you looked to then — my eyes filled 
with tears as I first read your words of delicate appre- 
ciation and esteem. My friends, I wish I were worthy 
of such reverence and love ; that my service were equal 
to your gratitude. I have had more than sufficient 
reward for my labors with you; not only have I seen 
a good work and a great prosper in my hands as you 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 40T 

held them up, but in public, and still more in private, 
you have given me the sweetest, best of outward con- 
solations — the grateful sympathy of earnest, thought- 
ful, and religious men. If my public life has been a 
battle, wherein my head grows bald, my beard turns 
grey, and my arm becomes feeble, before their time, 
it has been also a triumph, whose crown is not woven 
of the red-flowered laurels of war, but of the olive, 
the lily, the violet, and the white rose of peace. I 
have no delight in controversy ; when assailed, I have 
never returned the assault; and though continually 
fired upon for many years from the bar-room and the 
pulpit, and many another " coigne of vantage " be- 
twixt the two, I never in return shot back an arrow, in 
private or public, until in the United States Court I 
was arraigned for the " misdemeanor " of making a 
speech in Faneuil Hall against that kidnapping in Bos- 
ton, perpetrated by the public guardian of widows and 
orphans ; then I prepared my Defense^ which had been 
abler were I more a lawyer, though less a minister. 

To compose sermons, and preach them to multi- 
tudes of men of one sort but many conditions, thereto 
setting forth the great truths of absolute religion, and 
applying them to the various events of this wondrous 
human life, trying to make the constitution of the 
universe the common law of men, illustrating my 
thought with all that I can gather from the world of 
matter, its use and beauty both, and from the world 
of man, from human labors, sorrows, joys, and ever- 
lasting hopes — this has been my great delight. 
Your pulpit has been my joy and my throne. Though 
press and State, market and meeting-house, have been 
hostile to us, you have yet given me the largest Protes- 
tant audience in America, save that which orthodox Mr. 



408 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

Beecher, who breaks with no theologic tradition of the 
New England Church, inspires with his deep emotional 
nature, so devout and so humane, and charms with his 
poetic eloquence, that is akin to both the sweet-briar 
and the rose, and all the beauty which springs up wild 
amid New England hills, and to the loveliness of com- 
mon life; I have given you my sermons in return, at 
once my labor and delight. My life is in them, and 
all my character, its good and ill ; thereby you know 
me better than I, perhaps, myself — for a man's words 
and his face when excited in sermon and in prayer tell 
all he is, the reflection of what he has done. Sermons 
are never out of my mind; and when sickness brings 
on me the consciousness that I have naught to do, its 
most painful part, still by long habit all things will 
take this form ; and the gorgeous vegetation of the 
tropics, their fiery skies so brilliant all the day, and 
star-lit too with such exceeding beauty all the night; 
the glittering fishes in the market, as many-colored 
as a gardener's show, these Josephs of the sea; the 
silent pelicans, flying forth at morning and back again 
at night ; the strange fantastic trees, the dry pods rat- 
tling their historic bones all day, while the new bloom 
comes fragrant out beside, a noiseless prophecy ; the 
ducks rejoicing in the long-expected rain; a negro on 
an ambling pad; the slender-legged, half -naked negro 
children in the street playing their languid games, or 
oftener screaming 'neath their mother's blows, amid 
black swine, hens, and uncounted dogs ; the never- 
ceasing clack of women's tongues, more shrewd than 
female in their shrill violence ; the unceasing, multi- 
farious kindness of our hostess ; and, overtowering all, 
the self-sufficient. West Indian Creole pride, alike con- 
temptuous of toil, and ignorant and impotent of 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 409 

thought — all these common things turn into poetry 
as I look on or am compelled to hear, and then trans- 
figure into sermons, which come also spontaneously 
by night and give themselves to me, and even in my 
sleep say they are meant for you. Shall they ever be 
more than the walking of 

"A sick man in his sleep, 
Three paces and then faltering?" 

The doctors cannot tell; I also know not, but hope 
and strive to live a little longer, that I may work 
much more. Oh, that the truths of absolute religion, 
which human nature demands, and offers, too, from 
the infinitely perfect God who dwells therein, while 
He transcends the universe; oh, that these were an 
idea enlightening all men's minds, a feeling in their 
hearts, and action in their outward life ! Oh, that 
America's two and thirty thousand ministers, Hebrew, 
Christian, Mormon, knew these truths, and to mankind 
preached piety and morality, and that theology which 
is the science of God and His twofold universe, and 
forgot their mythologic and misguiding dreams ! 
Then what a new world were ours! Sure I would 
gladly live to work for this. 

I may recover entirely, and stand before you full 
of brown health, equal to the manifold labors of that 
position, live to the long period of some of my fathers, 
and at last die naturally of old age. This to me 
seems most desirable, though certainly not most prob- 
able. 

Or, I may so far recover, that I shall falter on a 
score of years or so, one eye on my work, the other 
on my body, which refuses to do it, and so urge my 
weak and balky horse along a miry, broken road. If 



410 EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

this be so, then, in some still, little rural nook, in sight 
of town, but not too nigh, I may finish some of the 
many things I have begun, and left for the afternoon 
or evening of my days ; and yet, also, from time to 
time, meet you again, and, with words of lofty cheer, 
look on the inspiring face of a great congregation. 
With this I should be well content; once it was the 
ideal of my hope. 

In either of these cases, I see how the time of this 
illness, and the discipline alike of disappointment and 
recovery, would furnish me new power. Several times 
in my life has it happened that I have met with what 
seemed worse than death, and, in my short-sighted 
folly, I said, " Oh, that I had wings like a dove ! for 
then would I fly away and be at rest ! " Yet my 
griefs all turned into blessings; the joyous seed I 
planted came up discipline, and I wished to tear it from 
the ground; but it flowered fair, and bore a sweeter, 
sounder fruit than I expected from what I set in earth. 
As I look over my life, I find no disappointment and 
no sorrow I could aff'ord to lose; the cloudy morning 
has turned out the fairer day ; the wounds of my ene- 
mies have done me good. So wondrous is this human 
life, not ruled by fate, but Providence, which is Wis- 
dom, married unto Love, each infinite ! What has been, 
may be. If I recover wholly, or but in part, I see 
new sources of power beside these waters of afiliction 
I have stooped at; I shall not think I have gone 
through " the valley of Baca " in vain, nor begrudge 
the time that I have lingered there, seeming idle ; rainy 
days also help to seed the ground. One thing I am 
sure of: I have learned the wealth and power of the 
grateful, generous feelings of men, as I knew them not 
before, nor hoped on earth to find so rich. High as 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 411 

I have thought of human nature, I had not quite done 
justice to the present growth of these beautiful facul- 
ties. Here and now, as so oft before, I have found 
more treasure than I dreamed lay hidden where I 
looked. 

But if neither of these hopes becomes a fact, if the 
silver cord part soon above the fountain, and the gold- 
en bowl be broke, let not us complain ; a new bowl 
and a stronger cord shall serve the well of life for you. 
Though quite aware how probable this seems, believe 
me, I have not yet had a single hour of sadness ; trust 
me, I shall not. True, it is not pleasant to leave the 
plough broken in the furrow just begun, while the 
seed-corn smiles in the open sack, impatient to be sown, 
and the whole field promises such liberal return. To 
say farewell to the thousands I have been wont to 
preach to, and pray with, now joyous, and tearful now 
— it has its bitterness to one not eighty-four but 
forty-eight. To undo the natural ties more intimately 
knit of long-continued friendship and of love — this 
is the bitter part. But if it be my lot, let not you 
nor me complain. Death comes to none except to 
bring a blessing ; it is no misfortune to lay aside these 
well-loved weeds of earth, and be immortal. To you, 
as a congregation, my loss may be easily supplied ; and 
to me it is an added consolation to know that, how- 
ever long and tenderly remembered, I should not long 
be missed; some other will come in my place, perhaps 
without my defects, possessed of nobler gifts, and cer- 
tainly not hindered by the ecclesiastical and social hos- 
tility which needs must oppose a man who has lived and 
wrought as I. It will not always be unpopular justly 
to seek the welfare of all men. Let us rejoice that 
others may easily reap golden corn where we have but 



41S EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 

scared the wild beasts away, or hewn down the savage 
woods, burning them with dangerous fire, and made the 
rich, rough ground smooth for culture. It was with 
grimmer fight, with sourer sweat, and blacker smoke, 
and redder fire, that the fields were cleared where you 
and I now win a sweet and easy bread. 

What more shall I say to sweeten words of fare- 
well, which must have a bitter taste. If I have taught 
you any great religious truths, or roused therewith 
emotions that are good, apply them to your life, how- 
ever humble or however high and wide; convert them 
into deeds, that your superior religion may appear in 
your superior industry, your justice, and your charity, 
coming out in your housekeeping and all manner of 
work. So when your 

" Course 
Is run, some faithful eulogist may say, 
He sought not praise, and praise did overlook 
His unobtrusive merit; but his life, 
Sweet to himself, was exercised in good. 
That shall survive his name and memory." 

Let no fondness for me, now heightened by my ill- 
ness, and my absence too, blind your eyes to errors 
which may be in my doctrine, which must be in my life ; 
I am content to serve by warning, where I cannot 
guide by example. Mortal, or entered on immortal 
life, still let me be your minister, to serve, never your 
master, to hinder and command. Do not stop where I 
could go no further, for, after so long teaching, I feel 
that I have just begun to learn, begun my work. 
" No man can feed us always ; " welcome, then, each 
wiser guide who points you out a better way. On 
earth I shall not cease to be thankful for your pa- 
tience, which has borne with me so much and long ; for 



EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER 413 

jour sympathy, nearest when needed most, and the ex- 
amples of noble Christian life, which I have found in 
some of you. 

" To whom is given 
The joy that mixes man with Heaven: 
Who, rowing hard against the stream. 
See distant gates of Eden gleam. 
And never dream it is a dream; 
But hear, by secret transport led, 
Even in the charnels of the dead. 
The murmur of the fountain-head: 
Who will accomplish high desire, 
Bear and forbear, and never tire — 
Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. 
As looking upward, full of grace. 
He prayed, and from a happy place 
God's glory smote him on the face!" 

Here they add to my j oy ; perhaps their remembrance 
will add to my delight in heaven. 

May you be faithful to your own souls; train up 
your sons and daughters to lofty character, most fit 
for humble duty ; and to far cathedral heights of ex- 
cellence, build up the being that you are, with feelings, 
thoughts, and actions, that become " a glorious human 
creature," by greatly doing the common work of life, 
heedful of all the charities, which are twice blest, both 
by their gifts and their forgiveness too. And the 
Infinite Perfection, the Cause and Providence of all 
that is, the Absolute Love, transcending the time and 
space it fills, our Father, and our Mother too, will bless 
you each beyond your prayer, for ever and for ever. 
Bodily absent, though present still with you by the im- 
mortal part, so hopes and prays. 

Your minister and friend, 

Theodore Parkee. 

Fredericksted, West-End, Santa Cruz, 
April 19th, 1859. 



POEMS 



EVENING 

How sweetly from the western sky 

Day's lingering colors fade ; 
How changing features softly vie, 

Shade deepening into shade ! 

How softly comes the grateful calm 
Which mellow evening brings ; 

The sweets of flowers, the breath of balm, 
Float on the zephyr's wings! 

How soft that wandering cloud appears, 

As the last tinge of day 
Crimsons the peak it proudly wears, 

Then slowly dies away! 

Now stars come forth, and one by one. 

In the broad field of night, 
Who veiled their face before the sun. 

Now pour emboldened light. 

Oh, night and stars ! your voice I hear, 
Swell round the listening pole ; 

Your hymns are praises, loud and clear. 
Are music to my soul. 

Sing on, sing on, celestial band, 

Till earth repeats your lays. 

Till the wide sea, the sky, the land, 

Shall celebrate his praise ! 
XII-27 417 



418 POEMS 



THE PILGRIM'S STAR 

To me thou cam'st, the earliest lamp of light 

When youthful day must sadly disappear — 
A star prophetic in a world of night, 

Revealing what a heaven of love was near ; 
And full of rapture at thy joyous sight, 

I journeyed fearless on the starlight way — 
A thousand other lights came forth so bright, 

But queenliest of all still shone thy ray. 

O blessed lamp of Beauty and of Love, 

How long I've watched thee shining far away ! 
Now, when the moon has chased the shadows gray. 

Still guided by thy memory forth I rove. 

I'll journey on till dark still lighter prove. 
And Star and Pilgrim meet where all is day. 



TO 



O, blessed days were these. 

When thou and I together 
Sought through the fields the wild red rose. 

In the golden summer weather! 

The lilies bloomed at morning's glow 
On the breast of the winding river ; 

I brought to thee their purest snow, 
Less welcome than the giver. 



POEMS 419 

There's beauty in the morning flowers, 

And in the noonday sun ; 
Time measures out the golden hours 

With the fairest suns that run. 

I know not what it signifies, 

But a single look from thee 
Comes fresher than the morning skies 

Or noonday light to me. 

O, people thou my thoughts by day, 

Adorn my dreams by night ; 
So cheer my saddened heart alway, 

By faith when not by sight. 



GUIDANCE 

Through crooked paths thou hast conducted me, 

And thorns oft forced my timid flesh to bleed ; 
Still I rejoiced my Leader's hand to see, 

Trusting my Father in my hour of need. 
When in the darkness of my early youth, 

Stumbling and groping for a better way. 
Through riven clouds streamed down the light of 
truth. 

And made it morning with refulgent ray. 
Along the steep and weary path I trod. 

With none to guide, and few to comfort me. 
I felt the presence of the eternal God, 

That in his hand 'twas blessedness to be, 
Pinding relief from woes in consciousness of thee. 



420 POEMS 

GOLDEN WEDDING 

SAMUEL, MAY AND WIFE 

Should youthful courtship be forgot, 

And never brought to min' ; 
Should youthful courtship be forgot. 

And the days lang syne? 

Those days of love we ne'er forget : 
How sweet your lips to mine 1 

Your mother did not heed the theft 
In the days lang syne. 

A half a hundred ^^ears ago 

We stood at wedding shrine: 
We're fifty years the better for 

The days lang syne. 

Brown ringlets round your snowy brow, 
That seemed like light to shine ; 

Now, changed to gray, they're still more fair 
Than in auld lang syne. 

How fond we prayed our lovers' prayer 

I' the moon's romantic shine ! 
'Tis deeper now, and tranquiller 

Than in auld lang syne. 

We've tasted many a bitter cup 

Of mingled myrrh and wine ; 
But the draught has made us stronger far 

Than in auld lang s^me. 



POEMS m 

How vain they talk that age can mar 

The f eehngs most divine ! 
Our hearts now beat with warmer love 

Than in da3^s lang syne. 

A willing bride and eager swain 

We stood at wedlock's shrine ; 
But other hearts are with us now 

Than of auld lang syne. 

Let youthful love be ne'er forgot 
Though a hundred years decline ; 

A household now rejoices in 
That day of auld lang syne. 

These labor on the blessed earth, 

Those heavenly flowers entwine ; 
And we are nearer heaven to-night 

Than of auld lang syne. 

And when beyond the grave we rest, 

Where saints in glory shine. 
We'll still look back, and God will bless 

For the days lang syne. 



JESUS 

Jesus, there is no dearer name than thine 

Which Time has written on his endless scroll : 

Nor wreaths nor garlands ever did entwine 
So fair a temple of so vast a soul. 



42a POEMS 

Ay, every angel set his glowing seal 

Upon thy brow, and gave each human grace, 
In a sweet copy heaven to reveal. 

And stamp perfection on a mortal face. 
Once on the earth before dull mortal eyes, 

Which could not half thy sacred radiance see. 
E'en as the emmet cannot read the skies, — 

For our weak orbs reach not immensity, — 
Once on the earth wert thou, a living shrine, 
Where dwelt the good, the lovely, the divine. 



THE GOSPEL OF LOVE 

" Oh Brother, who for us didst meekly wear 

The crown of thorns about thy radiant brow; 
What gospel from the Father didst thou bear 

Our hearts to cheer, making us happy now? " 
*' *Tis this alone," the immortal Saviour cries 

" To fill thy heart with ever active love, — 
Love for the wicked as in sin he lies. 

Love for thy brother here, thy God above. 
Fear nothing ill; 'twill vanish in its day. 

Live for the good, taking the ill thou must; 
Toil with thy might, with manly labor pray 

Living and loving, learn thy God to trust. 
And he will shed upon thy soul the blessings of the 
just." 



POEMS 425 



TRIALS 



For all the trials of my earlier day 

I thank thee, Father, that they all have been; 
That darkness lay about the rugged way 

Which I must tread alone. For all I've seen 
Of disappointment, sorrow, pain, and loss, 

I thank thee for them all. And did I sin, 
I grieve not I've been tried, for e'en the cross 

Of penitence has taught me how to win. 
Yet, of the ills as child or man I've borne, — 

My hopes laid waste, or friends sent off by death, — 
Remorse has most of all my bosom torn 

For time misspent, ill deeds, or evil breath 
But yet, for every grief my heart has worn. 

Father, I thank thee, trusting still with hearty faith. 

ASPIRATION 

Father, I will not ask for wealth or fame 

Though once they would have joyed my carnal 
sense : 
I shudder not to bear a hated name 

Wanting all wealth, myself my sole defense. 
But give me. Lord, eyes to behold the truth ; 

A seeing sense that knows the eternal right; 
A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth; 

A manly faith that makes all darkness light: 
Give me the power to labor for mankind. 

Make me the mouth for such as cannot speak; 
Eyes let me be to groping men and blind; 

A conscience to the base ; and to the weak 
Let me be hands and feet; and to the foolish, mind; 

And lead still further on such as thy kingdom seek. 



424. POEMS 

EVENING HYMN 

The chiming of the evening breeze 

That plays among the boughs ; 
The ripple of the purple seas 

As night her mantle throws ; 
The unveiling of each timid star 
That sheds its beauty from afar, — 
All these have voices for mine ear. 

All nature cries, great God! to thee; 

And I will raise my voice. 
Uplift my feeble minstrelsy. 

And bid my heart rejoice. 
Thy sun sheds glory in his light ; 
Deep darkness praises thee by night ; 
But 'tis thy Spirit makes delight. 

Great God! accept the humble praise 

A heart sincere would bring. 
My heart's own anthem 'tis I raise, 

My soul's desire I sing. 
Glory to thee, all gracious Lord! 
For thou dost every gift afford, 
And gladd'st my spirit with thy word. 

TO AN UNKNOWN FRIEND WHO SENT 
FLOWERS 

Dear child unknown, there came thy Christmas flowers, 

Abloom exotic 'mid December's snow. 
Cheering my heart yet more in these glad hours, 

When naught abroad save piety dares blow. 



POEMS 425 

And yet, my friend, amid a heavier snow, 

A sweeter flower thyself hast been to me. 
'Mid other storms, and in a wintrier woe, 

My flower-glad eyes were satisfied with thee. 
Thy comfort brought into my bosom glee. 

Yea, confidence and trust thy look did lend. 
When else in vain I sought tranquillity. 

Thus, daughter, sister, mother, wife, and friend, 
To one long nursed in grief's perplexity. 

Little know'st thou what healing cheer thy words 
could send. 

JESUS 

Oh, thou great friend to all the sons of men, 

Who once appeared in humblest guise below. 

Sin to rebuke and break the captive's chain. 

To call thy brethren forth from want and woe, — 

Thee would I sing. Thy truth is still the light 

Which guides the nations — groping on their way. 

Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, 

Yet hoping ever for the perfect day : 

Yes ! thou art still the Life, thou art the Way 

The holiest know, — Light, Life and Way of Heaven ! 

And they who dearest hope and deepest pray. 

Toil by the Light, Life, Way, which thou hast given. 

And by thy truth aspiring mortals trust 

To uplift their bleeding brothers from the dust. 



426 POEMS 

HUMAN MISERY, HEAVENLY RELIEF 

The saddening sense of human woe is deep 

Within my heart, and deepens daily there. 

I see the want, despair and wretchedness 

Of smarting men, who wear, close pent in towns, 

The galling load of life ; the rich, the poor. 

The drunkard, criminal, and they that make 

Him so, and fatten on his tears and blood. 

I bear their sorrows, and I weep their sins : — 

Would I could end them ! No : I see before 

My race an age or so ; and I am sent 

For the stern work, to hew a path among 

The thorns — I take them in my flesh — to tread 

With naked feet the road, and smooth it o'er 

With blood, and fainting, I shall lay my bones 

In some sharp crevice of the broken way. 

Men shall in better times stand where I fell. 

And journey singing on in perfect bands, 

Where I have trod alone, no arm but God's, 

No voice but his. Enough ! — His voice, his arm. 



THE GOOD SHEPHERD 

Yes, holy one, thou the good Shepherd art, 
Enduring hardest service for thy sheep. 

Hearing their bleatings with a human heart, 
Not losing such as thou wert put to keep ; 

But feeble wanderers from the field astray 
Thou on thy shoulders takest, and dost bear 

From hireling thieves and murdering wolves away, 



POEMS 427 

And watchest o'er them with a guardian care. 
Thou art the human Shepherd of the sheep, 

Leading them forth to pasture all the day, 
At night to folds which them in safety keep 

Thou Light and Life from God, to Heaven the Way, 
And giving at the last, thy own, thy well-beloved, 
sleep. 



ODE 

TO COMMEMORATE THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
SURRENDER OF THOMAS SIMS 

Sons of men who dared be free 
For truth and right who cross'd the sea, 
Hide the trembling poor that flee 
From the land of slaves ! 



Men that love your father's name. 
Ye who prize your country's fame, 
Wipe away the public shame 
From your native land! 



Men that know the mightiest Might, 
Ye who serve the eternal Right, 
Change the darkness into light — 
Let it shine for all! 



428 POEMS 

Now's the day, and now's the hour; 
See the front of thraldom lower, 
See advance the Southern power, 
Chains and slavery 1 

See the kidnappers have come! 
Southern climes surround your home ; 
Will you wait for harsher doom? 
Will you wear the chain? 

By yon sea that freely waves, 
By your father's honored graves. 
Swear you never will be slaves, 
; Nor steal your fellow man! 

By the heaven whose breath you draw, 
By the God whose higher law 
Fills the heaven of heavens with awe; 
Swear for freedom now! 

Men whose hearts with pity move, 
Men that trust in God above, 
Who stoutly follow Christ in love, 
Save your brother men ! 



POEMS 429 

WEBSTER 

1850 

Wayfarer, pause ! for late there stooped and fell 
One of earth's mightiest minds, and now, 
Stained and dishonored lies that ample brow 

Wherein the nation dreamed there slept a spell 

To stay the ancient fiend that overthrew 
Athena, Corinth and wide-grasping Rome, 
With every state where freedom sought a home, 

Threw down her altars and her prophets slew. 

But vainly gazed the nation on that brow ; 
Vainly they asked that kingly mind for aid: 
The new Iscariot freedom's trust betrayed. 

Go, passer-by ! to men this warning tell : 

The loftiest mind, scorning God's justice, fell. 

THE MISSION OF JESUS 

Dear Jesus, were thy spirit now on earth. 

Where thou hast toiled and wept a world to win. 
What vast ideas would sudden come to birth? 

What strong endeavors 'gainst o'ermastering sin, 
Thy blessed beatitudes again thou'dst speak; 

And with deep-hearted words that smite like fire, 
Wouldst thou rebuke the oppressors of the weak. 

But, turning thence to prophets that aspire. 
How wouldst thou cheer the souls that seek to save 

Their brethren smarting 'neath a despot's rod; 
To lift the poor, the fallen and the slave. 

And lead them all alive to worship God ! 
Bigots wouldst thou refuse that hindering stand 
But send thy gospel-fraught apostles conquering 
through the land. 



490 POEMS 

ALMIGHTY LOVE 

In darker days and nights of storm, 
Men knew thee but to fear thy form: 
And in the reddest lightnings saw 
Thine arm avenge insulted law. 

In brighter days we read thy love 
In flowers beneath, in stars above ; 
And in the track of every storm 
Behold thy beauty's rainbow form. 

And in the reddest lightning's path 
We see no vestiges of wrath, 
But always wisdom — perfect love, 
From flowers beneath to stars above. 

See, from on high sweet influence rains 
On palace, cottage, mountains, plains! 
No hour of wrath shall mortals fear, 
For their Almighty Love is here. 



PRAYER 

O thou Eternal One, may I commune 

With thee, and for a moment bathe my soul 

In thy infinity, Mother and Sire 

Of all that are ? In all that is art thou ; 

Being is but by thee, of thee, in thee ; 

Yet, far thou reachest forth beyond the scope 

Of space and time, or verge of human thought. 



POEMS 431 

Transcendent God! Yet, ever immanent 
In all that is, I flee to thee, and seek 
Repose and soothing in my Mother's breast. 

God I cannot fear, for thou art love. 
And wheresoe'er I grope I feel thy breath ! 
Yea, in the storm which wrecks an argosy, 
Or in the surges of the sea of men 
When empires perish, I behold thy face, 

1 hear thy voice, which gives the law to all 
The furies of the storm, and Law proclaims, 

" Peace, troubled waves, serve ye the right — be still ! '* 

From all this dusty world thou wilt not lose 

A molecule of earth, nor spark of light. 

I cannot fear a single flash of soul 

Shall ever fail, outcast from thee, forgot. 

Father and Mother of all things that are, 

I flee to thee, and in thy arms find rest. 

My God ! how shall I thank thee for thy love ! 

Tears must defile my sacramental words, 

And daily prayer by daily penitence 

For actions, feelings, thoughts which are amiss: 

Yet will I not say, " God, forgive ! " for thou 

Hast made the effect to follow cause, and bless 

The erring, sinning man. Then, let my sin 

Continual find me out, and make me clean 

From all transgression, purified and bless'd! 



432 POEMS 

A GARDEN 

FROM THE GERMAN 

On the pinions of the muses, 
My dearest, thee I bear 

To the banks of holy Ganges, 
Where I know the spot most fair. 

A rosy-blooming garden 

Lies in still moonlight there ; 

The lotus flowers are waiting 
Their little sister dear. 

The violets are billing and cooing. 
And look to the stars above ; 

In secret the roses whisper 
Their fragrant story of love. 

There comes to leap and listen 
The shy and cunning gazelle 

And far on the holy river 
The waters rush and swell. 

There 'neath a palm we'll lay us. 
Beside the holy stream, 

And drink of love and quiet. 
And dream a blessed dream. 



POEMS 433 

LANGUAGE OF THE EYES 

FROM THE GERMAN OF RUCKERT 

Oh, not in many languages 

My youthful love rejoices, 
But with her eyes she better speaks 

Than others with their voices. 

Oh, what a copious stock of words 

In this open letter treasured ! 
A single glance, a paragraph 

Of meaning all unmeasured. 

Artists have painted Love as blind ; 

Dumb were he better painted. 
The pains of silence done away 

By speech the eyes invented. 

That is the only speech among 

The blessed stars in heaven ; 
And flowers discourse it in the spring 

From morning until even. 

That is the speech whose character, 

With rays of stars eternal, 
Is written by the pen of love, 

And shines through space supernal. 

This language not by mind is known. 

But better by emotion ; 
Therefore, Love only speaks in this 

On every land and ocean. 
XII— 28 



434 POEMS 



THE SPHINX 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE 

This is the pld poetic wood; 

The linden's breath comes steahng; 
And glancing wondrously the moon 

Enchanteth every feeling. 

I walked therein, and as I went 

Above I heard a quiring; 
It was the nightingale ; she sang 

Of love and love's desiring. 

She sang of love and of love's woe, 
Of laughter and of weeping ; 

She joy'd so sadly, plain'd so gay. 

That dreams came back from sleeping. 

I walked therein, and as I went, 

Before me saw, expending 
In ample space, a castle huge, 

Its gables high ascending; 

Windows were closed, and everywhere 

A silence and a mourning. 
As if in those deserted walls 

Was quiet death sojourning. 

Before the door a sphinx there lay, 
Part joy, part fear, half human; 

Body and claws a lion's were, 

The breast and head, a woman, — 



POEMS 4S5 

A woman fair; her pallid face 

Spoke of most wild desiring; 
The silent lips were arched with smiles, 

A tranquil trust inspiring. 

The nightingale, too, sweetly sang. 

Could I resist her? Never! 
But as I kissed the handsome face, 

My peace was gone forever! 

Living became the marble form, 

The stone began to shiver, 
She drank my kisses' fiery glow 

With thirsty lips that quiver. 

She almost drank away my breath. 

And then, with passion bending. 
She coil'd me round, my mortal flesh 

With lion-talons rending. 

Ecstatic torture, woeful bliss ! 

Joy, anguish, without measure ! 
And while the talons grimly tear, 

Her kisses give such pleasure ! 

The nightingale sang, " Handsome sphinx ! 

O Love, what is intended — 
That all thy bless'd beatitudes 

With death-throes thou hast blended? 

Oh, handsome sphinx, come, solve for me 

The riddle, tell the wonder ! 
For many a thousand years thereon 

Thought I, and still I ponder." 



4d6 POEMS 

WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE 

My child, when we were children, 
Two children small and gay, 

We crept into the hen-house, 
And hid us under the hay. 

We crowed as do the cockerels. 
When people passed the wood, 

" Ki-ker-ki ! " and they fancied 
It was the cock that crow'd. 

The chests which lay in the court-yard, 
We paper'd them so fair, 

Making a house right famous, 
And dwelt together there. 

The old cat of our neighbor 
Oft came to make a call ; 

We made her bow and courtesy, 
And compliment us all. 

We ask'd with friendly question. 
How she was getting on ; 

To many an ancient pussy 
The same we since have done. 

In sensible discoursing 

We sat like aged men, 
And told how, in our young days, 

All things had better been. 



POEMS 437 

That faith, love and religion 

From earth are vanish'd quite ; 
And told how dear is coffee, 

And money is so tight. 

But gone are childish gambols, 

And all things fleeting prove ; 
Money, the world, our young days, 

Religion, truth and love. 



THE LITTLE FLOWER 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE 

Thou art a little flower. 
So pure and fair and gay, 

I look on thee and sadness 

Steals to my heart straightway. 

My hands I feel directed 

Upon thy head to lay, 
Praying that God may keep thee. 

So pure and fair and gay. 



438 POEMS 



MOHNIKE, IN WILHELMI'S LYRIK 

A light skiff swam on Danube's tide, 
Where sat a young man and his bride : 
He this side, she that side. 

Quoth she, " Heart's dearest, tell to me 
What wedding gift I'll give to thee? " 

Upward her little sleeve she strips, 
And in the water briskly dips. 

The bridegroom did the same straightway, 
And played with her and laughed so gay, 

*' Oh, give to me Dame Danube fair, 
Some pretty toy for my bride to wear." 

She drew therefrom a handsome blade, 
For which the young man long had prayed. 

The groom, what holds he in his hand? 
Of milk-white pearls a costly band. 

He turns it round her raven hair ; 
She looked like any princess there. 

'* Dame Danube fair, to me impart 
Some pretty toy for my sweetheart.'* 

A second time her arm dips in, 
A glittering helm of steel to win. 



POEMS 439 

The youth, o'er-joyed the prize to view. 
Brings her a golden comb thereto. 

A third time she in the water dipped, 
Ah, woe ! from out the skiff she sHpped, 

He springs and grasps, alas, the day! 
Dame Danube tears them both away. 

The Dame to use her toys began. 
Therefore must perish maid and man. 

The empty skiff floats down alone ; 
Behind the hills soon sinks the sun. 

And when the moon stood overhead, 
To land two lovers floated, dead: 
He this side, and she that side. 



FRAGMENT FROM GEIBEL'S " TANN- 
HAUSER " 

Now is the night so joyous. 

Now blooms so rich the wold, 
And on all hill-tops whisper 

Such voices manifold! 
The streamlets twinkle and glisten. 

The flowers give fragrance and light ; 
The marble statues listen 

In the dark green of the night. 



440 POEMS 

The nightingale singeth, " Beware, beware ! " 
The boy looks forth, and forth will fare; 
Wild beats his heart — he heedeth not : 
What once he loved is all forgot. 

A castle in the garden: 

With light the windows glance, 
At the door are pages waiting, 

Above resounds the dance. 
Up the stairway he is leaping, 

He enters in the hall ; 
There are silken garments sweeping. 

There gleams the gold pokal. 

The nightingale singeth, " Beware, beware ! " 
The boy looks forth, and forth will fare ; 
Wild beats his heart — he heedeth not ; 
What once he loved is all forgot. 

The fairest of the women 

Holds out to him the glass. 
While cool, delicious shudders 

Through soul and body pass. 
He drains the magic measure, 

The door dwarf answers shrill, 
" Now, boy, thou art our pleasure : 

This is Dame Venus' hill." 

The nightingale singeth, but from afar; 
The boy is drawn by his evil star; 
Wild beats his heart — he heedeth not : 
What once he loved is all forgot. 



POEMS 44)1 

MY DARLING 

FEOM THE GERMAN OF HEINE 

Thou hast diamonds and jewels, 

Hast all that mortals adore, 
And eyes thou hast most handsome ; 

My darling, what would'st thou more? 

Upon thine eyes so handsome 

I've written many a score 
Of poems, all Immortal; 

My darling, what would'st thou more? 

And with thine eyes so handsome* 
Thou hast tortured me full sore, 

And hast me ruined utterly ; 

My darling, would'st thou more? 

THE WANDERER 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE 

Many a form of days forgotten 

Arose from out its grave, 
Again to show me clearly 

What life thy presence gave. 

By day I wandered dreaming — 
Through all the streets I'd range ; 

Men looked astonished on me, 
I was so sad and strange. 



442 POEMS 

At night it all went better, 

For then the streets were clear ; 

I and my ghost together, 
We wandered silent there. 

On the bridge, with echoed footsteps. 

My rambling way I took ; 
The moon broke through the night-clouds. 

Greeting with serious look. 

I stood before thy dwelling. 

And gazed upon the sky. 
And gazed upon thy window : 

My heart beat wild and high. 

I know that oft the window 
Thou'st open'd with thy hand, 

And seen me in the moonlight. 
Like a marble statue stand. 



FROM THE RUSSIAN 

Moaning, moaning, through the oak wood, 
Clouds the field all overhanging. 
Her only son drives forth the mother: 
" Hence thou son, out of my cottage. 
Thee may cruel Moslems capture ! " 

" Oh, well remember me the Moslems, 
Offer me the dearest horses." 



POEMS 443 

Moaning, moaning, through the oak wood, 

Clouds the field all overhanging, 

Her only son drives forth the mother; 

" Hence, my son, out of my cottage. 

Thee may cruel Tartars capture." 

" Oh, well remember me the Tartars, 
Offer me most precious garments." 

Moaning, moaning, through the oak wood, 

Clouds the field all overhanging. 

Soft her darling clasps the mother : 

" Come, my son, come to my cottage. 

Thy fair hairs let me comb over ! " 

" Mother, oh, the rain will wash me. 
And the thickest thorn-bush comb me ; 
The sharp winds know how to dry me." 

Brings his steed the oldest sister. 

And the second brings the weapons ; 

Of her brother asks the youngest: 

" When return'st thou from the battle ? " 
" Take thou up of sand a handful. 
Strew it then upon the ledges. 
And bedew it still with weeping. 
By the morning star just shining; 
When the sand shall blossom, sister. 
Then shall I return from battle." 



4i4i4t POEMS 

THE FAREWELL 

FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE 

The lindens were blooming, the nightingale sung, 
The sun smiled on us with friendliest fire, 

You kissed me so, then, and your arms round me flung, 
And clasped to your bosom that throbbed with de- 
sire. 

The raven croaked dull, the leaves they all fell. 
The sunlight salutes us gloomily now. 

We frostily said to each other. Farewell, 

And courtly you bow'd me the courtliest bow. 



FROM MARTIN OPITZ 

Come, dearest, let us hasten 

While time is ours ; 
Delay is fast consuming 

All of our powers. 

The noblest gifts of beauty 

Fly wing and wing, 
And all that one possesses 

Is vanishing. 

The rosy cheek is paling, 
The hair turns gray ; 

The eye's bright fire is failing ; 
The breast is clay. 



POEMS 4*45 

That dainty mouth of coral 

Will soon be cold, 
Those hands, like snow, hang heavy, 

And thou'lt be old. 

Then let us seize, in rapture. 

Youth's fruit of gold. 
Before we're called to follow 

Years that are told. 

As thou thine own self lovest. 

Love me as true ; 
Give me — what else thou givest. 

That love I, too. 



HYMN NO. 1400 IN CHEVALIER BUNSEN'S 
COLLECTION 

The gloomy night is gathering in, 
The day's sweet hght is dead ; 

Oh, then, my soul, sleep not in sin, 
Commune with God instead ! 

Oh God, the world's eternal Lord, 

Whom no one can perceive. 
Thou seest me daily in thy tent ; 

Wilt thou my prayer receive ? 

The daylight which is ended now. 

In chief belongs to thee. 
And so ought I, from mom till night, 

Thy holy servant be. 



446 POEMS 

Perhaps my duty is not done, 
For I am flesh and blood ; 

And trespass ere the day is gone, 
Although the will be good. 



NOTES 



NOTES 
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 

This fragment of an autobiography was commenced 
by Theodore Parker at Rome with the object of en- 
trusting it, when finished, to his friend Mr. Lyman, to 
be used by him some day. It appeared in Weiss's Life 
of Theodore Parker, pp. 17-26. It is printed here in 
its original condition, except that a few pages of botan- 
ical matter have been omitted. When Parker found 
that he could write no more, he closed the manuscript 
with the following note to the reader. 

" N. B. Caveat Lector. This will require careful 
re-writing, and, as it stands, may contain many errors 
of detail, for I write it when too ill to read, and with no 
memoranda to aid me. I should like to consult the 
deeds of the early settlers in my neighborhood, to 
learn the original ownership of land, the date of the 
houses, and the names of places like ' the great 
meadow.' Few men, if any, now living will remember 
the name, but I have found it in old deeds. 

"I began this at Rome, March 16, 1860. It is 
not likely I shall get far in it. I have waited more 
than a year for strength to begin it, and now commence 
at my weakest point. 

" The material and human circumstances about a 
man in his early life have a strong and abiding influ- 
ence upon all, especially on those of a sensitive disposi- 
tion, who are both easily affected by such externals and 
rather obstinate in retaining the impression made on. 
them." 

XII-29 449 



450 NOTES 

THE TRUE IDEA OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

This discourse was given at the installation of Theo- 
dore Parker as minister of the Twenty-Eighth Congre- 
gational Church in Boston, January 4, 1846. 

The installation of Theodore Parker as minister of 
the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Church in Boston, 
at the Melodeon, on January 4, 1846, was a very sim- 
ple event, characteristic of the man and the congrega- 
tion over which he was called to preside. The hall was 
filled by a large audience. No clergymen were invited 
to participate in the proceedings, and the formalities 
commonly regarded as essential to such an occasion 
were dispensed with. 

An introductory hymn was sung by the choir, and a 
prayer was made by Mr. Parker, followed by a volun- 
tary on the organ. The chairman of the standing 
committee then addressed the congregation as follows : 

" By the instructions of the society, the committee 
have made arrangements with Mr. Parker by which the 
services of this society under the new organization 
should commence with the new year ; and this being our 
first meeting, it has been set apart for such intro- 
ductory services as may seem proper for our position 
and prospects. 

" The circumstances under which this society has been 
formed and its progress hitherto are familiar to most 
of those present. It first began from certain influences 
which seemed hostile to the cause of religious freedom. 
It was the opinion of many of those now present that 
a minister of the gospel truly worthy of that name 
was proscribed on account of his opinions, branded as 
a heretic, and shut out from the pulpits of the city. 
At a meeting of gentlemen, held January 22, 1845, the 
following resolution was passed : * Resolved, that the 
Reverend Theodore Parker shall have a chance to be 
heard in Boston.' 



NOTES 451 

" To carry this into effect, this hall was secured for 
a place of meeting, and the numbers who have met here 
from Sunday to Sunday have fully answered our most 
sanguine expectations. Our meetings have proved that 
though our friend was shut out from the temples, yet 
' the people heard him gladly.' Of the effect of his 
preaching among us I need not speak. The warm feel- 
ings of respect and gratitude expressed on every side 
are the best evidence of the efficacy of his words and of 
his life. Out of these meetings our society has nat- 
urally sprung. It became necessary to assume some 
permanent form. The labor of preaching to two soci- 
eties would of course be too much for Mr. Parker's 
health and strength. The conviction that his settle- 
ment in Boston would be not only important for our- 
selves, but also for the cause of liberal Christianity and 
religious freedom, impelled us to action. These were 
some of the reasons which induced us to form a society 
and invite him to become its minister. To this he has 
assented, with the understanding that the connection 
may be dissolved by either party on giving six months' 
notice to that effect. 

" At Mr. Parker's suggestion, and with the warm ap- 
proval of the committee, we have determined to adopt 
the old congregational form of settling our minister, 
without the aid of bishop, churches, or ministers. As 
to our choice, we are, after mature reflection, and after 
a year's trial, fully persuaded that we have found our 
minister, and we ask no ecclesiastical council to ratify 
our decision. As to the charge usually given on such 
occasions, we prefer to do without it, and trust to the 
conscience of our minister for his faithfulness. As to 
the right hand of fellowship, there are plenty of us 
ready and willing to give that, and warm hearts with 
it. And for such of the other ceremonies usual on such 
occasions as Mr. Parker chooses to perform, we gladly 
accept the substitution of his services for those of any 
stranger. 



452 NOTES 

" The old Puritan form of settling a minister is for 
the people to do it themselves, and this let us now pro- 
ceed to do. In adopting this course, we are strongly 
supported both by principle and precedent. Congre- 
gationalism is the republicanism of the church; and it 
is fitting that the people themselves should exercise their 
right of self-government in that most important partic- 
ular, the choice and settlement of a minister. For 
example, I need only remind you of the settlement of 
the first minister in New England, on which occasion 
this form was used, and that it is also used at this day 
by one of the most respectable churches of this city." 

The society then ratified the proceedings by a 
unanimous vote, and Mr. Parker publicly signified that 
he adhered to his consent to become the minister of this 
society, and the organization of the society was thus 
completed. 

A hymn was sung, and Mr. Parker then delivered 
his discourse, which was followed by an anthem, and a 
benediction concluded the services. 

Page 38 y note 1, Rev. John Pierpont, for many 
years minister of the HoUis Street Church, was driven 
out on account of his advocacy of various reforms. 
He preached especially against intemperance and slav- 
ery, and greatly offended certain of his parishoners who 
were distillers and rumsellers, who claimed that these 
" exciting topics " should not be discussed in the pul- 
pit. He stoutly maintained his ground for several 
years, was not sustained by the clergy in general, and 
finally was compelled to leave the position he had so 
long and ably filled. 

SOME ACCOUNT OF MY MINISTRY 

This sermon and the one which follows were preached 
before the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society in 
Boston, on the 14th and 21st of November, 1852, on 



NOTES 453 

leaving their old and entering a new place of worship. 

Page 66, note 1. The term hunker was first used 
in the State of New York about 1845, and applied as 
a name to the conservative section of the Democratic 
party, who opposed the " Barnburners " or radical sec- 
tion. It was frequently used by Mr. Parker, not in a 
political sense, but as indicating a person selfish and 
arrogant, who assumed to be superior to the " common 
herd," and to dictate to and manage them ; a " bloated 
aristocrat," a vain and self-sufficient, purse-proud fel- 
low, lacking in humanity and well filled with self-conceit. 
These were hunkers in Church and State, and in various 
branches of business. 

Page 73, note 2. Here Parker makes note that there 
was one exception : " Abusive letters from South Car- 
olina were uniformly post-paid. Such anonymous let- 
ters I never read." 

Page 77, note 3. The theological intolerance mani- 
fested against Mr. Parker in this country did not ap- 
pear to any great extent in England or elsewhere in 
Europe. The foreign thinkers were quick to per- 
ceive the drift of his mind, and very enthusiastic to 
recognize his capacity for entertaining righteousness. 
Many of the clergy welcomed his views, and acknowl- 
edged their indebtedness to him, and where there was a 
difference on points of doctrine, it did not blind them 
to his greatness as a scholar and a humanitarian. His 
books were largely read, and fairly criticised. After 
his death he was warmly eulogized in sermons and ad- 
dresses, and several biographies appeared, full of en- 
thusiastic praise for his lofty character and wonderful 
accomplishments in many lines of service. 

James Martineau says of him in the Prospective Re- 
view for February, 1846: " Gladly do we gird up our 
hearts to follow the bold and noble steps of Theodore 
Parker over the ample province of thought which he 



454 NOTES 

traverses in his ' Discourse of Religion ' . . . 
The purity and depth of his conceptions of character, 
his intense abhorrence of falsehood and evil, the moral 
loftiness of his devotion and the generous severity of 
his rebuke are in the strongest contradiction to the 
serene complacency of a mind suspended in meta- 
physic elevation dbo'ce the point where truth and error, 
right and wrong, diverge, and looking down from a 
station whence all things appear equally divine." 

A writer in the Westminster Review, one of the great 
English quarterlies, in a review of the " Discourse of 
Religion" in 1847, says: " Parker writes like a He- 
brew prophet, enriched by the ripe culture of the mod- 
em world. . . . Listening to the American re- 
former, you stand before a man of high and devout 
genius, who disposes of his wealth of erudition in the 
service of religion." 

Dean Stanley, in an article on the " Historical As- 
pect of the American Churches," in Macmillan's Maga- 
zine, not long before his death, says : " He must be 
regarded as the first pioneer on the transatlantic 
continent of those larger views of critical inquiry and 
religious philosophy which have so deeply influenced all 
the churches of the Old World." 

When he visited America, he said, " Theodore Parker 
has contributed more to theological progress than any 
•other religious thinker of the century." 

Rev. Peter Deem in the preface to his book, " Life 
and Teachings of Theodore Parker," says : " This 
book is the offspring of gratitude and duty. Person- 
ally I have received greater spiritual good from the 
life and doctrines of its subject than from those of 
any other teacher or exemplar." 



NOTES 455 

Richard Ackland Armstrong in a series of lectures on 
*' Latter Day Teachers," refers to Theodore Parker 
as a " bright and shining light in the constellations of 
the spiritual heavens." 

Rev. William Henry Channing, in 1860, then preach- 
ing in Liverpool, thus speaks of Theodore Parker: 
" Doing with might what his hand found to do lived 
Theodore Parker — living the lives of many men in 
one, living too fast, and dying too soon, leaving a void 
that all now mourn and none can fill. He was truly 
great, — great by endowment, self -discipline and cul- 
ture, by providential training and the wise use of op- 
portunities, by high positions bravely won, and by 
ever-widening influence. He was great in character 
and conduct, in genius and accomplishment. He was 
great in the ends he sought, in his principles and modes 
of action, and in the spirit of his life. His fame is 
great, even now, though he fell exhausted by excessive 
toil in mid career, ere half his work was done. And 
henceforth his name will shine amidst the great his- 
toric names of his nation. Due distance from our 
compeers enables us to measure their aims and achieve- 
ments, so as in some degree to anticipate the judgment 
of futurity. And thus looking from Old England to- 
wards New England, I clearly discern that Theodore 
Parker stands conspicuously eminent among the great- 
est of his generation in the United States." 

Rev. Philip William Perfitt, in a discourse occasioned 
by the death of Theodore Parker, says : " There was 
a fountain of spiritual truth in his nature, and boun- 
teously he lavished the richest thoughts upon his hear- 
ers. His discourses are so filled with this truth, clothed 
in language of the greatest beauty, combined with 
power and grace, that we may say of them, they are 
equal to every want, and that he who possesses them 



456 NOTES 

will scarcely need any other religious books. There is 
no straining after rhetorical effect, no mere piling of 
words wherewith, as is common, to hide the poverty of 
ideas, but he rushes on from thought to thought, and 
gives in one discourse more real and substantial matter 
than many give in a volume." 

Rev. Henry N. Bamett pays him this fine tribute: 
" His spiritual life has its fountains and its sanctities, 
not in the traditions, creeds and customs of the 
churches, but in the depths of his own spiritual nature. 
He lived from within, not from without. No vicarious, 
artificial or ceremonious sanctities molded his spirit, 
controlled his conduct, or prescribed his destiny. His 
thoughts, beliefs, devotions, his hopes, aspirations, 
assurances, his own exertions, sacrifices, his purposes, 
methods and plans were his own, dictated only by his 
own conscience, governed only by his own judgment, 
warranted only by his own nature, consecrated freely 
to his own salvation. He revered the traditional, but 
not the dust in which it was enshrined. He loved the 
ancient saints, not for the titles bestowed upon them by 
the manufacturers of a sinister calendar, but for the 
radiant virtues that made them strong while they lived 
and the unquenchable piety that gave them immortality. 
The prophets he revered, not because ecclesiastical tri- 
bunals pronounced them divine, but because they had 
borne the testimony of their protests, their sorrows, and 
their blood to the everlasting justice of God and the 
outraged rights and responsibilities of mankind. He 
called no man master, but with the beautiful modesty 
of true righteousness he preserved his mind free from 
every ghastly enslavement, that it might more freely 
dedicate itself to the simple services of earth and 
heaven. Never had man more catholic heart than he. 
His sympathies were comprehensive as the face of the 
world, and as warm as the instincts of humanity. He 



NOTES 4.57 

Tvas a glorious heretic who could afford by the fruit- 
fulness and glowing ecstasies of his own religious life, 
to brave the terrors which the churches of his day 
might try to heap upon him, and he, the one man, — 
assured, calm, courteous, resolute, fearless, mighty, — 
stood up against the combined priestly forces of his 
time, and taking their doctrines, one by one, set the 
true on his right hand, and the false on his left, even 
as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, and 
having achieved his imperial discrimination, in spite of 
entreaty, deprecation, condemnation, persecution, male- 
diction ; turning to the mischief-makers of his genera- 
tion, he declared their creed to be a lie, their discipline 
a tyranny, their worship a corruption, and their dom- 
ination a curse." 

Archdeacon Wolff of Kiel, the translator of the 
" Discourse of Religion," says of him : " Is it Par- 
ker's aspiration for the true and holy, is it the child-like 
love with which he bows before the works of God, and 
lies low in the bosom of Nature, is it the genuine human 
mildness with which he judges the faults and weak- 
nesses of men, is it the noble justice with which he will- 
ingly acknowledges and brings into prominence what- 
ever is good and praiseworthy in an opponent, is it the 
manly courage which never trembles before truth, is 
it the profound learning which is bottomed on re- 
searches the most widely extended, is it the one or the 
other, or is it the impression which all these together 
make on the reader, which leads us to admire and appre- 
ciate him? I never read such language, and do not 
doubt it will affect all others in the same way." 

Rev. Albert Reville, a French pastor, who greatly 
appreciated Parker, and wrote a life of him, has this 
estimate of him : " Happy the churches who shall find 
in their essential principles the right to open themselves 



458 NOTES 

without resolution to that imperishable Christianity of 
which Theodore Parker was the inspired preacher! 
The fundamental truth which he maintained, namely, 
that in the last analysis everything rests on conscience ; 
that God reveals Himself to whosoever seeks after Him ; 
that the salvation of man and society, on earth as well 
as in heaven, depends not on dogmas, not on rites, not 
on miracles, not on priesthoods, nor on books, but on 
' Christ in us '; on a pure and honest heart, on a loving 
soul, on a will devoted and active, — this truth will live 
and cause us to live with it. And the church for which 
he prayed, which shall be spacious enough to contain all 
the sincere, all the disinterested, all the morally great, 
all the innocent, and all the repentant — that church, 
truly universal, which in the past already unites so 
many noble souls separated by barriers now tottering 
— that church will never perish." 

Henry Thomas Buckle, whose brilliant work on the 
" History of Civilization in England " was warmly wel- 
comed as a most valuable contribution to the literature 
of the world, in a letter to Mr. Parker, with whom he 
had corresponded, expressing his regret that he was 
unable to meet him when in London in 1859, calls him 
*" the most advanced leader of opinion in one of the two 
first nations of the world." 

Frances Power Cobbe, who edited the complete edi- 
tion of Parker's works published in England, praises 
him in this fashion : " He was a great and good man ; 
the greatest and best, perhaps, which America has pro- 
duced. He was great in many ways. In time to come 
his country will glory in his name, the world will ac- 
knowledge all his gifts and powers. His true great- 
ness, however, will in future ages rest on this : — that 
God revealed Himself to his faithful soul in his most 
xidorable aspects ; that he preached with undying faith, 



NOTES 459 

and lived out In his life the lesson he had thus been 
taught; that he was worthy to be the prophet of the 
greatest of all truths, — the absolute goodness of God, 
the central truth of the universe." 

Mr. Parker, during his visit in Europe, in 1833-34, 
made the personal acquaintance of many eminent schol- 
ars, with some of whom he had corresponded, and was 
warmly received, and recognized as a kindred spirit, es- 
pecially in Germany, where he had much friendly inter- 
course with the leading minds in that center of learning, 
— among them De Wette, whose " Introduction to the 
Old Testament " he had translated, of which a reviewer 
of this work in the Christian Examiner remarks : — 
" Few, even among scholars, can easily reckon the 
amount of labor bestowed by the translator. For any- 
thing except the mere critical reference he has made it 
practically a new work. The whole body of literature 
which it reflects and represents he has studied with in- 
dependent judgment, posting up the bibliography of 
the subject to the freshest dates. . . . He fairly 
divides the honors of the work with the original com- 
poser. . . . Large and brave service he has ren- 
dered in many ways, and this striking monument of his 
dogged industry and scholarly wealth of reading we 
take pleasure in welcoming once more to its permanent 
place among the classics of Biblical criticism." 

In the last year of his life, when traversing Europe 
again, Mr. Parker renewed his acquaintance with some 
of the eminent men he had met before, and found new 
friends wherever he went. One of the pleasantest 
events of that year was his visit to Prof. Edward Desor, 
the naturalist, a man of great scientific knowledge, of 
simple tastes and habits, and of great integrity, who 
welcomed him to his home in Switzerland, where he 
spent some weeks in company with a number of other 



460 NOTES 

scientists and theologians. Desor had been a most con- 
genial friend for several years, and stopped for several 
weeks at Parker's house when in America. 

In Italy he was welcomed by the Brownings, who 
greatly appreciated him. 

A letter from Florence, Italy, dated May 8, 1860, to 
the New York Times, by an unknown writer, contains 
the following tribute : — -" Like so many Americans, 
wandering in Europe in pursuit of health or pleasure 
or instruction, Mr. Parker has come to close his eyes in 
Florence. Four or five have died here during the last 
four months. The thought is saddening that the ca- 
reer of Mr. Parker is to end so soon, that in the matu- 
rity of his years and his intellectual strength these 
great powers are no longer to be exerted in this world. 
Whatever feeling may be entertained towards him by 
those who do not sympathize with his views, there are 
none but must admire and reverence his mind of won- 
drous scope, his uncommon attainments, his extraor- 
dinary intellectual independence and moral energy, the 
great purity of his character, and the exalted ends for 
which he has labored and sacrificed his life. When the 
great work for the accomplishment of which some of 
the best men are devoting their eff*orts is done, and the 
noise of the warfare is hushed, then will this large- 
hearted champion enter into the full heritage of his 
fame. His golden words, or those others, as hard, 
bright and sharp as steel, will fall on generous hearts, 
or excite stem souls, as they already have done, to do 
something for the welfare of the human race. The 
grave closes over him, but the ideas he has advanced 
will remain to exert their infiuence for good upon gen- 
erations yet unborn. A man with an intellect so acute 
and forceful, trained by a course of study so thorough 
and almost universal, devoted to the highest subjects 



NOTES 461 

of human concern, active beyond the usual Hmit of 
active men, a profound thinker and scholar, a most 
forcible writer and speaker, a sincere and earnest well- 
wisher of the race, — he has left a void which this gen- 
eration will vainly seek to fill. Controversy is hushed 
in the presence of death, and in this hour of saddest 
portent we may well pause to deplore the sudden ter- 
mination of such a brilliant career." 

From India came this interesting statement : — " The 
Baboos have given up their idols and Shastees, and 
have for themselves accepted Theodore Parker. Some 
are pantheists and others deists. Those who are inti- 
mate with educated Hindoos state that no modem writ- 
ings have exercised a greater influence over them than 
those of Theodore Parker. It involves no loss of caste 
to believe in him, but to become a Christian, to attend 
church and receive the rite of baptism, to believe in 
Jesus as a Saviour is to become an apostate, unclean 
and impure. No man can become a Christian without 
being cast off by his dearest friends, — wife, children, 
father, mother, all hate and curse him; but no such 
consequences follow when idols and Shastees are re- 
jected, and the theology of Mr. Parker is accepted in- 
stead." 

The use of the word " Christian " in the above state- 
ment doubtless refers to the missionaries who were sent 
out by the Orthodox Church to convert the " heathens " 
of India to their kind of Christianity, and to their fol- 
lowers. 

Rakhal Des Haldar, an intelligent Brahman, wrote 
to Mr. Parker from India of the interest in his writings 
wherever there was intelligent conversation on religious 
topics among his countrymen. 

The foregoing tributes to Mr. Parker, while showing 
how warmly he was welcomed and esteemed in other 



462 NOTES 

countries than his own, recognize and appreciate the 
reHgious side of his character, and the great work he 
accompHshed in freeing men from bigotry and super- 
stition, and inculcating an idea of God and man, and 
the relation between them, acceptable to the human un- 
derstanding and satisfying to the soul. 

In this connection, a very pleasant recognition of his 
work and expression of sympathy with his teachings, is 
revealed in a letter addressed to the Twenty-Eighth 
Congregational Society, in 1854, by Dr. Johannes 
Ronge and his associates. 

Ronge had been a German Catholic priest in Silesia, 
who, having quarreled with the authorities of his 
church, was suspended from his office, and living in re- 
tirement. In 1844, Bishop Amoldi appointed a special 
service and pilgrimage to Treves, on the occasion of the 
exhibition of the " Holy Coat," to be preceded by con- 
fession and remission of sins. Ronge addressed a pub- 
lic letter to the bishop, in which he characterized the 
exhibition of the coat as idolatry. This action was ap- 
proved by many Catholics, as well as Protestants. He 
subsequently addressed an appeal to the lower orders 
of the priesthood calling on them to use their influence 
to break the power of the court at Rome and priestcraft 
in general throughout Germany ; to set up a national 
German church independent of Rome, governed by 
councils and synods ; to abolish auricular confession, 
the Latin mass, and the celibacy of the priests ; and to 
aim at liberty of conscience for all Christians, and per- 
fect freedom for the religious education of children. 
Ronge was chosen preacher of a congregation formed 
at Breslau, with a confession of faith which wholly de- 
parted from the doctrine and ritual of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church. The Scripture was laid down as the only 
rule of Christian faith, and no external authority to 
be allowed to interfere with the free interpretation of 



NOTES 463 

it. Belief in God as the Creator and Governor of the 
world, and the Father of all men ; in Christ as the 
Saviour ; in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, 
forgiveness of sins and eternal life, were the essentials 
of doctrine. Baptism and the Lord's Supper were the 
only sacraments. Confirmation was retained, but most 
of the rites of the Roman Catholic Church were given 
up. The advance movement went rapidly forward, 
and by the end of 1845, it included about three hundred 
congregations. Professors and other leading Catholics 
joined in it, and leading Protestants like Gervinns 
looked upon it as a momentous event in the history of 
Germany. Orthodox Catholics opposed it, conservative 
Protestants thought it was undermining religion in gen- 
eral, and dangerous to the welfare of Church and State. 
The governments of Saxony and Prussia imposed ty- 
rannical restrictions upon the " Dissidents," as the au- 
thorities styled them, and Austria sent them out of her 
territories. Disagreements on points of doctrine arose 
among themselves, and two parties were formed, one 
conservative, the other radical and free-thinking, the 
latter led by Ronge, who was active in traveling and 
preaching, and his followers increased. Political op- 
position became more active, and he retired to London, 
where he had wider scope for the promulgation of his 
liberal theological ideas. Both he and his accomplished 
wife were friends of Froebel, and were much interested 
in kindergarten work. Numerous schools of this kind 
were established in France and Germany, and between 
1854 and 1866, thirty or forty were in successful oper- 
ation in England. Besides Rouge's active participa- 
tion in this line, his church work was carried forward 
on the most liberal basis, as will be seen by the letter to 
Mr. Parker's society above mentioned, which is here 
reproduced : 



464 NOTES 

LONDON HUMANISTIC ASSOCIATION 

32 Tavistock Place, Tavistock Sa., 

September 21, 1854. 

To the Boston Free Church, Twenty-Eighth Con- 
gregational Society, under the ministry of the Reverend 
Theodore Parker : — 

Dear and Esteemed Friends: We so thoroughly 
agree with you in statements, in feeling, and in hope, 
and your minister is so much ours also that we long to 
have a more tangible and expressed union so far as pos- 
sible, and participation in each other^s struggles. You 
will be pleased to know that your pastor's sermons are 
looked for in Europe as anxiously as by yourselves ; 
that the words uttered in Boston are heard not only 
in all the religious communities in England and Ger- 
many, but that many who have not the clear light or 
moral courage to proclaim the pure human natural 
religion, are still glad to refresh themselves at our 
table, and they are daily becoming more wise and tol- 
erant. We are well aware that your minister cannot 
be alone; that there must be many true hearts cluster- 
ing around him, lending him their inspiration ; that you 
have one voice, but many tongues ; and feeling thus, we 
greet you all, from the least to the greatest, — for al- 
though we admire talent and rejoice in the strength of 
a brother's arm, we would not forget the widow and her 
two mites. The higher religious sympathy makes all 
one. 

We are only imperfectly acquainted with your trials 
in America; but we have little to complain of here. 
We have absolute freedom to propagate our views. 
The difficulty is to get a hearing, for in the din and 
clamor of millions of tongues ours is often lost or un- 
heeded. 

The people here are so much absorbed by trade and 



NOTES 465 

war that it is only the larger sects that are listened to, 
and those only by a certain class, what are called " the 
respectable people." The great mass of our intelligent 
artisans, the life and soul of the nation, is as indifferent 
to the Church as it is to Mahometanism. Nearly all 
our sects wheedle, coax and curse it ; but this class goes 
whistling on its way, perfectly indifferent to bishop or 
ranter. Neither is this to be attributed to the preva- 
lence of atheism, for we have but few atheists amongst 
us. The heart of England is, as it ever has been, re- 
ligious, and turns to the All-Father as the child to the 
parent. But our churches have separated religion from 
life, and our people have separated themselves from the 
churches, as pieces of mechanism which they do not 
understand. We are seeking these sheep without a 
shepherd, carrying them the little we know, and telling 
them how much we feel ; and the common people hear 
us gladly. 

We have no persecution in England ; but on the con- 
tinent our communities have had grievous afflictions. 
It is the winter and the storms, the cold and the rain, 
that are felling the tender plants, but there is sufficient 
vitality to last until spring. Already there are indica- 
tions of the approaching season. The frost giants sit 
insecurely on the grave of liberty and the breaking up 
of the ice is at hand. We do not despair of Germany. 
She is sleeping, but not dead. 

Ours is the lot of all reformers. We are rich in 
heart and soul, but poor in purse. Fashionable benev- 
olence invests its capital in older organizations, in those 
recognized in society, and leaves us to fight our way 
as best we can. 

We have in addition to our Sunday meeting a good 
school, and we are introducing a new system of infant 
teaching, the kindergarten of M. Froebel. We attach 
much importance to this system of juvenile training, 
and beg to recommend it to your consideration. 



466 NOTES 

What are the atheists doing amongst you? Here 
they are active but by no means numerous. Many have 
given up the name, and to some extent the profession 
of atheism as a system. They are simply iconoclasts, 
and as we are all artists and architects, it is of course 
impossible that we can unite. Have you any news- 
papers, magazines or reviews? If so, we shall be 
happy to read them, and if agreeable contribute arti- 
cles, either in English or German. At all events, if you 
have no papers, we shall be glad of a letter from you, 
and hope to continue our correspondence. M. Ronge 
has had several invitations from communities in Amer- 
ica who correspond with us to visit them, and the prob- 
ability is that he will do so at some future time. It 
will be no small pleasure to him to see you and to ex- 
change those personal greetings which are so much 
more agreeable than mere correspondence. Should 
your minister or any of your friends visit this country, 
our community will esteem a visit from them a great 
favor. 

We remain, dear friends, in behalf of the Association, 
Sincerely and faithfully yours, 

Johannes Ronge, Chairman. 

VlTTINGHOFF, 

Bertha Ronge, 

F. Vallinghoff, 

John Ellis, 

R. A. Duncan, Secretary. 

To this communication a cordial response was made 
by the representatives of the Twenty-Eighth Congre- 
gational Church. 

Page 77, note J/,. This reference was to Rev. John 
T. Sargent, a minister to the poor, who preached in 
Suffolk Street Chapel in Boston, which was under the 
control of the Fraternity of Churches. He led his 
flock in spiritual things, and contributed in material 



NOTES 467 

ways to their comfort and happiness from his own re- 
sources. He was doing a noble work for which he was 
admirably fitted. He did not share the prejudice of 
the clergy in general against Mr. Parker, with whom he 
sometimes exchanged pulpits, much to the satisfaction 
of his parish, who gladly listened to the great reformer. 
This alarmed the Executive Committee of the Fra- 
ternity, who exercised their technical right to ask Mr. 
Sargent not to admit so dangerous a man into his pul- 
pit. They dreaded his influence, feared the poor would 
be corrupted and misled by his teachings. Mr. Sar- 
gent manfully resigned rather than take a pledge that 
he would not exchange with him, and his people were 
thus deprived of the services of their best friend and 
helper. 

PRAYERS 

Page no, note 1. The Fugitive Slave Bill had re- 
cently been enacted by a pro-slavery administration, 
and the anti-slavery people of Boston and elsewhere 
were roused to a high state of indignation against this 
iniquitous statute, and active in denouncing it, and 
devising schemes to prevent its execution, — warning 
the fugitives who had previously escaped to the North 
and were located there, concealing them, or aiding 
them to reach Canada, and providing for the newly-ar- 
rived in a similar way. No one was more zealous in 
this work than Mr. Parker. He was chairman of the 
Boston Vigilance Committee, and did noble service in 
raising public opinion against the kidnappers, and in 
defeating their efforts to capture the fugitives. 

The ministers of many of the prominent churches in 
the North gave their support to the Fugitive Slave 
Bill. 

Page 131, note 2. The bronze statue of Beethoven, 
which was sculptured by Crawford, and presented to 
the Music Hall Association by Charles C. Perkins, was 



468 NOTES 

inaugurated with appropriate ceremonies on the even- 
ing of March 1, 1856, prominent among which was 
the recital of a poem by William W. Story. Besides 
the reference to this event in his prayer, the next day, 
Mr. Parker made the following allusion to it in his 
sermon : — 

" I honor great power of thought, few perhaps more 
so. ' I reverence with great esteem a man of genius for 
art, poetry, science, practical life, with executive power 
to plan and build, to organize matter or men into 
forms of use and beauty. When I meet with such an 
one, spite of me, down go the stiff knees of my venera- 
tion. And most spontaneously do I bow to a man of 
great justice, one of the pillars of righteousness. I 
know several such, whom the good God has set up here 
and there in great towns and little, and I take off my 
hat thereto, with an inward relish of the homage that 
I pay them, as I shudder a little with delight, as a 
poetic-minded New Englander needs must when he first 
sees a great antique temple of Grecian or Roman art, 
or when he stands for the first time before the statue of 
Apollo, which enchants the world, or Olympian Jove, — 

" — which young Phidias wrought, 
Not from a vain and shallow thought," 

or when he stands before this majestic figure, in which 
one great American artist, cradled in poverty, has in- 
carnated the lofty lineaments of another great artist, 
also cradled in poverty, who beforehand had builded 
himself a monument more lasting than brass, for he 
had carved out of the unseen air a figure of himself, 
which will endure when this brass shall have dissolved 
itself into gases and escaped into the sky. 

*' There, my friends, stands a new colleague, whom I 
welcome to the work of philanthropy and piety. He 
is ordained as colleague, pastor with myself. It is a 



NOTES 469 

great honor that I, prosy man as I am, stand at the 
feet of that incarnation alike of music and poetry ; and 
when I am silent that majestic brow will appeal to you ; 
those eyes, turned upward and looking inward, will 
disclose to you the vision through his faculty divine; 
and when my hand writes not, that figure will still be 
to you emblematic of higher thoughts than I can set 
to music in poetry or speech. That is one great ideal- 
izer; there is a dearer one, and that is the love which 
his song represents, and which the sculptor's art would 
fail to portray." 

POEM BY WILLIAM W. STORY 

Lift the veil ! the work is finished. 

Fresh-created from the hands 
Of the artist, grand and simple 

There our great Beethoven stands; 

Clay no longer, he hath risen 

From the burial mold of earth, 
To a golden form transfigured 

By a new and glorioous birth. 

Art has bid the evanescent 

Pause and know no more decay ; 
Made the mortal shape immortal, 

That to dust has passed away. 

There's the brow by thought o'erladen 

With its tempest of wild hair. 
There the mouth so sternly silent. 

And the square cheeks seamed with care. 

There the eyes so visionary. 

Staring out, yet seeing nought 
But the inward world of genius, 

And the ideal forms of thought. 



470 NOTES 

There the hand that gave its magic 

To the cold, dead ivory keys, 
And from out them tore the strugghng forms 

Of mighty symphonies. 

There the figure, calm, concentered. 
On the breast the great head bent. 

Stands forever thus, great master. 
Thou thy fittest monument. 

Poor in life, by friends deserted, 
Through disease and pain and care. 

Bravely, stoutly, hast thou striven, 
Never yielding to despair. 

High the claims of art upholding. 
Firm to freedom in a crowd. 

Where the highest bent as courtiers, 
Speaking manfully and loud. 

In thy silent world of deafness, 

Broken by no human word, 
Music sang with voice ideal 

While thy listening spirit heard. 

Tones consoling and prophetic. 
Tones to raise, refine and cheer. 

Deathless tones that thou hast garnered 
To refresh and charm us here. 

And for all those riches priceless. 
All those wondrous gifts of thine, 

We have only time-dry laurel. 
On thy careworn brow to twine. 

We can only say, Great Master, 
Take the homage of our heart, 

Be the high priest of our temple, 
Dedicate to thee and art. 



NOTES 471 

Stand before us and enlarge us, 

With thy presence and thy power, 
And o'er all art's deeps and shadows 

Light us like a beacon tower. 

In the mighty realm of music 

There is but a single speech, 
Universal as the world is, 

That to everj heart can reach. 

Thou within that realm art monarch. 

But the humblest vassal there 
Knows the accent of that language 

When it calls to war or prayer. 

Underneath its world-wide banyan. 

Friends, the gathering nations sit, 
Red Sioux and dreamy Germans 

Dance and feast and fight for it. 

When the storm of battle rages, 

And the brazen trumpet blares. 
Cheering on the sacred tumult, 

In the van the meteor flares. 

Sings the laureled song of conquest. 

O'er the buried comrade wails. 
Plays the peaceful pipes of shepherds 

In the lone Etrurian vales. 

Whispers love beneath the lattice 

Where the honeysuckle clings. 
Crowns the bowl and cheers the dancers. 

And it peace to sorrow brings. 

Nature knows its wondrous magic. 
Always speaks in tone and rhyme; 

Doubles in the sea the heavens. 
Echo on the rocks the chime. 



472 NOTES 

All her forests sway harmonious. 
All her torrents lisp in song, 

All the starry spheres make music, 
Gladly j oumeying along. 

Thou hast touched its mighty mystery. 

With a finger as of fire ; 
Thrilled the heart with rapturous longing, 

Bade the struggling soul aspire. 

Through the daring modulations, 
Mounting up our dizzy stairs 

Of harmonic change and progress, 
Into high elysian airs. 

Where the wings of angels graze us, 
And the voices of the spheres 

Seem not far, and glad emotions 
Fill the silent eyes with tears. 

What a vast, majestic structure 
Thou hast builded out of sound. 

With its high peak piercing heaven 
And its deep base under ground. 

Vague as air, yet firm and real 

To the spiritual eye, 
Seamed with fire its cloudy bastions 

Far away uplifted lie. 

Like those sullen shapes of thunder 

We behold at close of day, 
Piled upon the fair horizon 

Where the jagged lightnings play. 

Awful voices as from hades 

Thrill up growling from its heart, 

Sudden splendors blaze from out it. 
Cleaving its black walls apart. 



NOTES 47S 

While winged birds start forth and vanish, 

Singing as they pass from sight, 
Till at last it lifts, and 'neath it 

Lets a breeze of amber light. 

When some single star is shining, 

Throbbing like a new-bom thing. 
And the earth all dressed in splendor 

Hears the happy voices sing. 

Topmost crown of ancient Athens, 

Towered the Phidian Parthenon, 
Upon freedom's noble forehead 

Art, the starry jewel, shone. 

Here as yet in our republic, 

In the furrows of our soil. 
Slowly grows art's timid blossom 

'Neath the heavy foot of toil. 

Spurn it not, but spare it, nurse it, 

Till it gladdens all the land, 
Hail to-day the seed of promise 

Planted by a generous hand, — 
Our first statue to an artist. 

Nobly given, nobly planned. 

Never is a nation finished 

While it wants the grace of art. 
We must borrow robes from beauty. 

Life must rise above the mart. 

Faith and love are all ideal. 

Speaking with a music tone. 
And without this touch of magic 

Labor is the devil's own. 



474 NOTES 

Therefore are we glad to greet thee, 
Master artist, to thy place, 

For we need in all our living 
Beauty and ideal grace. 

Mostly here to lift our nation, 

Move its heart, and calm its nerves. 

And to round life's angled duties 
To imaginative curves. 

Mid the jarring din of traffic, 

Let the orphic tone of art 
Lull the barking Cerberus in us. 

Soothe the cares that gnaw the heart. 

With thy universal language 

That our feeble speech transcends. 

Wing our thoughts that creep and grovel, 
Come to us when speaking ends. 

Bear us into realms ideal. 

Where the court of common sense 

Dins no more its heartless maxims 
To the jingling of its pence. 

Thence down-dropped into the actual 
We shall on our garments bear 

Perfume of an unknown region, 
Beauty of celestial air. 

Life shall wear a nobler aspect, 
Joy shall greet us in the street. 

Earthly dust of low ambition 
Shall be shaken from our feet. 

Evil spirits that torment us 

Into air shall vanish all, 
And the magic harp of David 

Soothe the haunted heart of Saul. 



NOTES 475 

As of yore the swart Egyptians 

Rent the air with choral song, 
When Osiris' golden statue, 

Triumphing they bore along, 

As along the streets of Florence 

Borne in glad procession, went 
Cimabues' famed Madonna, 

Praised by voice and instrument. 

Let our voices sing thy praises, 

Let our instruments combine, 
Till the hall with triumph echo. 

For the hour and place are thine. 

" The bronze statue of the man whose greatest sym- 
phony broke forth into a song of joy for earth's 
millions, looked over the preacher, steadfast as bronze 
himself, while the warm heart beat and flowed. And 
earth must be rugged and solid to contain its own 
tides. The preacher and the composer were kindred in 
sorrows and in moral quality, in love and in scorn ; they 
built faith upon the essential harmonies of the great 
world of nature and of man, and bade the tumultuous 
passages of life resolve themselves, with all their low, 
presageful thunder into the triumphant security which 
only the man who has kept himself like a little child 
can feel. 

In this world there is no end of fine coincidences 
where things themselves are fine. The great German 
stands mutely in the hall of the great American, while 
he preaches a universal doctrine. 

** In the mighty realm of music there is but a single speech," 

and that is the speech of all hearts who yearn for the 
harmonies of God, deep religious awe, tender depend- 



476 NOTES 

ence, flashing, sarcastic sincerity, fiery indignation, 
pure humanity, love that melts all races, like kindred 
drops, into one heart, even that heart which the Father, 
through diversities, is striving to create." 

" John Weiss." 

Fage 224* note 3* This reference is to the assault 
on Charles Sumner, who on the 19th and 20th of May, 
1856, delivered before the United States Senate a speech 
of great power and eloquence, in which he boldly ex- 
posed the subservience of the administration to the dic- 
tates of the slave power, and severely arraigned the ad- 
vocates and promoters of slavery for their iniquities, of 
which the most conspicuous at that time was their effort 
to establish it in the territory of Kansas, then seeking 
admission to the Union as a State. This territory 
formed a portion of that large tract of country ob- 
tained from France in 1803, known as the Louisiana 
Purchase, from that part of which lying north of lat- 
itude 30° SO', slavery was excluded by the Missouri 
Compromise of 1820, which measure was repealed in 
May, 1854, and it was left for the settlers to decide 
whether Kansas should become a free or a slave State. 
Missouri sent over its " border-ruffians," and other 
slave States contributed their worst desperadoes, to fur- 
ther the nefarious schemes of the pro-slavery leaders. 
The anti-slavery men in the free States were greatly 
roused, and many of them, armed with Sharp's rifles 
and other weapons, set off for Kansas to defeat these 
efforts. A fierce conflict ensued between the two par- 
ties, and was in full progress when Sumner delivered 
his speech in the Senate. It was given to the press 
under the title " The Crime Against Kansas." The 
poet Whittier on reading it sent this laconic message 
to the senator : " Thy best ; enough for immortal- 
ity!" 

The pro-slavery members of Congress, who, backed 



NOTES 477 

by the executive branch of the government, had 
hitherto, for a considerable while, managed affairs much 
to their own satisfaction, and fondly imagined that the 
whole country was to become subject to their will, were 
deeply incensed at the masterly exposition of their poli- 
cies and the opposition to their methods by the senator 
from Massachusetts, whom they cordially hated, and 
immediately began plotting for revenge. They could 
not answer his arguments, and so resorted to the tactics 
of the highwayman and the assassin. Two days after 
the delivery of the speech, on the 22nd of May, while 
Mr. Sumner was busily engaged in writing at his desk in 
the Senate Chamber, several of the pro-slavery men 
entered the room, among them Preston S. Brooks, rep- 
resentative from South Carolina, who approached the 
senator, who was in such a position that he could not at 
once rise to his feet, and without warning commenced 
beating him upon the head with a bludgeon. Mr. 
Sumner fell to the floor, bleeding and unconscious. 
The blows were continued, until some other members 
of Congress rushed into the room and compelled the 
assailant to desist, and his victim was carried out by 
friendly hands. 

A wave of indignation swept over the North, and the 
outrage was denounced as a cowardly assault upon a 
noble man and an insult to Massachusetts. Brooks 
was henceforth known as " Bully Brooks." A. clamor 
of rejoicing ran through the South. The Richmond 
Examiner declared that " no event has transpired for 
many years which the South should hail with more 
pleasure." Brooks was lauded as a hero, and testi- 
monials bestowed upon him by his admiring friends. 

Mr. Sumner never fully recovered from his injuries; 
but after a painful illness during some years, from 
which he sought relief at home and abroad, he was 
sufficiently restored to resume his seat in the Senate, 
in December, 1859, having been re-elected during his 
absence for another term of six years. 



478 NOTES 

This event, together with the struggle in Kansas, 
tended to rouse the North from its apathy, and to pro- 
mote the sentiment for national freedom, which resulted 
in the election of Lincoln, the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia, the issue of the Proclamation of 
Emancipation, and the overthrow of the slave power. 



THEODORE PARKER'S EXPERIENCE AS A MINISTER, 
WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS EARLY LIFE, AND 
EDUCATION FOR THE MINISTRY. 

Page '293, note 1. This boyish familiarity with Na- 
ture and delight in her works strengthened with his 
growth and was a perpetual source of pleasure to him 
through all his life. His knowledge in this direction 
was exact and comprehensive. He was a keen observ^er, 
and took note of every natural object, animate or in- 
animate, that came within the range of his vision, 
wherever he might be. In the city he longed for the 
fields and woods to which he had been accustomed from 
his birth ; next to books, they were essential to his com- 
fort and happiness. It was a sore disappointment if 
he did not get out of town in time for the apple blos- 
soms. 

Here are some passages from his diary : " Went 
over to West Roxbury to see the old familiar places — 
the dear old places. The seat under the willow was 
there just as I made it; the Rudbeckia was in blossom 
just as I planted it ; the hibiscus where I set it ; but the 
new proprietor has torn up the sumachs which I nour- 
ished with such care. There were the two favorite spots, 
— the little cosy place under the cedars where I have 
spent so many delightful hours, the walk in the woods, 
■with the houseleek, the golden moss, and the peppermint 
all there ; all the rest had died ; the rose-bush was gone, 
even the old pine was dead. I went and gathered my 
favorite flowers in the old locations, the Houstonia re- 



NOTES 479 

curvata, etc. The trees have grown abundantly ; all 
else looked natural, but a deal of sadness comes into the 
heart on visiting alone the places which are endeared 
by association with others, such as the rocks in the 
woods." 

" Walking the other day in the woods, in the midst 
of the snow at the bottom of a steep hill, I found a 
little spring of water, clear as the sky above, and as 
unruffled, not frozen, though winter had set its seal 
stiffly upon everything around. Over this beautiful 
spring there arose a great oak, very old and ' stern to 
look upon,' one which had mocked at many winters. 
This great oak clasped a young hemlock tree with its 
arms, and seemed to hold it in shelter from all the rude 
blasts of time. The younger tree had evidently grown 
up under its protection, and now repaid its defender 
by looking kindly upon him, when his own leaves had 
all fallen away. It was beauty in the arms of 
strength." 

This deep sympathy with nature constantly appeared 
in his sermons and prayers, and gave them a poetic 
tinge, which charmed the listener or the reader. 

He took pleasure in animals of every description, and 
was never tired of watching them. 

But his sympathy for men, women and children rose 
far above his feeling for nature, animate and inanimate, 
and for all the expressiveness of art. 

Page 296, note 2. Early in the temperance move- 
ment, Dr. Lyman Beecher preached a masterly sermon 
on the subject of intemperance, which greatly stirred 
the people everywhere. Shortly after Mr. Parker was 
settled in the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society, 
he preached a sermon on the same subject, which was 
published, and fell into the hands of Dr. Beecher, who 
had retired from the ministry. He was so much pleased 
with it that he went to see Mr. Parker, who greeted 
him cordially. Dr. Beecher said: " I have just been 



480 NOTES 

reading your temperance sermon, and have come here 
to tell you that I like it. It is the best I ever read, 
and I hope you will go on fearlessly in the glorious 
work. You have given the monster. Hercules blows. 
Follow them up ! Follow them up ! " He asked Mr. 
Parker about his theological views, which he explained 
to him, not concealing the fact that he had no sympa- 
thy with the theology of Dr. Beecher. The venerable 
man then remarked, " Well, Mr. Parker, I am much 
gratified with this interview. We are both at work in 
the same cause in bettering the conditions of humanity, 
I. trust, and advancing the cause of truth in the world. 
True, we are traveling in different paths, but if we are 
careful to keep within hail of each other, we cannot 
help arriving at the same place." The interview ended 
with mutual feelings of warm regard. Here was a 
friendly recognition of good work that Mr. Parker was 
doing, regardless of the most widely divergent theo- 
logical opinions entertained by the parties, in striking 
contrast to the course pursued by some other clergy- 
men, more sectarian and less humane. 

Dr. Beecher was once invited to a consultation of the 
evangelical clergy of Boston, as to the best means of 
staying the influence of Mr. Parker's preaching. 
When apprised of the object of the meeting, he very 
gravely informed them that Mr. Parker was doing his 
own work in his own way, and if they would be as faith- 
ful as he to their own mission their apprehensions would 
cease. 

A similar manifestation of kind feeling towards Mr. 
Parker by Henry Ward Beecher occurred at a later 
period. In 1857, he delivered one of the lectures in 
the course projected by the Fraternity Association, 
composed chiefly of members of Mr. Parker's congre- 
gation, for which he was assailed by the New York 
Examiner, an exponent of malignant Orthodoxy, and 
charged with " giving eclat to an infidel enterprise," 



NOTES 481 

thereby subjecting to suspicion the soundness of his 
own orthodoxy. Mr. Beecher made an able and elab- 
orate reply in the New York Independent, exposing* 
the absurdity of this charge, on the ground that the 
widest difference in theological views did not prevent 
those who held them from cooperating in any good 
work. His article is marred by much theological dog- 
matism and clerical egotism in defining his own beliefs, 
which was quite unnecessary, but contained this pas- 
sage : " Word comes that Mr. Parker, broken down 
by over-labor, seeks rest and restoration In a warmer 
clime. Should these lines reach his eye let him know 
that one heart at least remembers his fidelity to man in 
great public exigencies, when so many swerved of whom 
we had a right to expect better things. God shield 
him from the ocean, the storm, the pestilence, and heal 
him of lurking disease ! " 

Page 297, note 3. This freedom of thought per- 
mitted to the students by the professors of the Theo- 
logical School became a serious offense in Theodore 
Parker, when he publicly declared his views of religion, 
and sectarian opposition began to manifest itself In a 
very positive manner. The sermon of Emerson In 
July, 1838, at the graduation of the divinity class, at 
their invitation. In which he exposed the weaknesses and 
faults of the Church, roused the ire of the Cambridge 
theologians. Andrews Norton came to the rescue in 
1839 with an address on " The Latest Form of Infi- 
delity." A long discussion between him and George 
Ripley and others followed, and several pamphlets on 
either side were Issued. Mr. Parker joined therein with 
one entitled " The Previous Question between Mr. An- 
drews Norton and his Alumni moved and handled In a 
Letter to all these gentlemen, by Levi Blodgett." 

Mr. Parker had entered Harvard College on August 
23, 1830, having passed the required examinations. He 
remained at home, doing his share of the work upon the 
XII— 31 



482 NOTES 

farm, continuing his studies, and going to Cambridge 
to take part in the examinations. He was always ahead 
of his class. Not having paid any tuition fees, he was 
not entitled to a degree. But in 1834, at the sugges- 
tion of his friend Dr. Convers Francis, the usual de- 
gree of A.B. was offered him upon payment of the 
fees for instruction for four years, a considerable sum, 
quite beyond his means, and he could not buy his degree. 
In 1840, at the suggestion of friends who thought it 
a shame that so distinguished a mind should be unrec- 
ognized, the degree of A.M. was conferred upon him. 
This required urging, for the quality of mind was not 
such as the Cambridge men approved; some were un- 
willing that so pronounced a rationalist should be an 
acknowledged son of Harvard. 

The clamor of denunciation and abuse which burst 
out upon the delivery of the famous South Boston ser- 
mon at the ordination of Mr. Shackford, on May 19, 
1841, " The Transient and Permanent in Christianity," 
in which the Unitarians were as vehement as the Orth- 
odox, — forgetting how themselves had been assailed in 
former years for promulgating a more liberal form of 
religion than had hitherto prevailed, — was in evidence 
at Cambridge as elsewhere. 

The opposition and unfriendliness of the Unitarian 
clergy to Mr. Parker, with a few notable exceptions, 
continued to the end of his life. Meanwhile he went 
calmly on in the great work in which he was engaged, 
confident that he was right, heedless of the clamor of 
lesser men, preaching and lecturing to great audiences, 
who never tired of listening, ignoring the tricks of the 
revivalists and other exhorters, while his influence con- 
tinually strengthened and widened throughout the 
land and other lands, and hosts of friends looked to 
him for guidance, and cheered and encouraged him in 
his labors. Among them were many of the Harvard 
students, who were accustomed to walk from Cambridge 



NOTES 483 

to Boston, to listen to his Sunday discourses and lec- 
tures in that city, and back to Cambridge, fired with 
zeal and enthusiasm at what they had heard. 

In 1857, the senior class in the Cambridge Divinity 
School invited Mr. Parker to deliver the customary ad- 
dress before them and the public the Sunday before their 
graduation. The faculty, contrary to the rights of the 
alumni and the law of the University, refused to allow 
him to address them. The young men stood their 
ground, and made a manly protest against the violation 
of the school's essential principle of intellectual free- 
dom, but it was of no avail, and the class then declined 
to elect any other preacher. This Insult offered by 
Harvard, known as a " liberal institution," to her most 
Illustrious son, is a sad Instance of the short-sighted- 
ness and narrowness of men claiming to be Christians 
and to represent the highest ethical culture. 

At a Divinity School alumni meeting in July, 1859, 
Moncure D. Conway offered a resolution of sympathy 
with Mr. Parker in his illness, which expressed a hope 
of his return with renewed strength to his post of duty. 
It was supported by James Freeman Clarke, and op- 
posed by others, and failed to pass, — the old theo- 
logical venom still rankling In the Unitarian body and 
preventing a word of consolation and good cheer to the 
worn-out man, who had sacrificed his life in the service 
of humanity. 

During the fifty years which have elapsed since the 
death of Mr. Parker, a radical change has occurred In 
the estimate of him and his work, not only among the 
Unitarians, who now acknowledge him as their great 
leader, and are eager to do him honor, but in the Orth- 
odox ranks his influence is plainly apparent In the mod- 
ification of their Calvinlstic theology, and the more 
humane ideas of God, of man, and the relation between 
them, as expressed In their preaching and their litera- 
ture. 



484* NOTES 

Even Harvard College entertains a saner opinion of 
the great " heretic," and during the Commencement 
Exercises in 1908, a marble tablet was placed in Di- 
vinity Hall, of which this is a copy : 

THEODORE PARKER 
1810 I860 
GRADUATE OF THIS SCHOOL 1836 
PREACHER REFORMER SCHOLAR 
MASTER OF WIDE LEARNING APPLIED TO HU- 
MAN USES BY FRANK AND UNSPAR- 
ING SPEECH 
FEARLESS FOLLOWER OF JESUS BEARING 
WITNESS TO THE TRUTH 
LOVER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS HATER OF 

INIQUITY 
A HERO IN FIGHT A SAINT IN PRAYER 
HE PROCLAIMED AS HUMAN INTUITION THE 
PERFECTION OF GOD THE AUTHOR- 
ITY OF CONSCIENCE THE ASSUR- 
ANCE OF IMMORTALITY 

SIN TO REBUKE TO BREAK THE CAPTIVES 

CHAINS 

TO CALL THY BRETHREN FORTH FROM WANT 

AND WOE 

David A. Wasson, a wise and careful observer, said 
of him shortly after his death : " Not only ages, but 
entire civilizations may pass, before another man shall 
arise just so gifted and equipped as him whom we com- 
memorate to-day. It is not so much that his powers 
were rare in kind, though they were surely rare, very 
rare in degree, but his distinction is that he combined 
in himself qualities and powers which separately would 
have made only a multitude of strong men, and in their 
vital union produced that brand of the Lord, that Mis- 
souri of manhood, whom we remember as Theodore 
Parker." 



I 



NOTES 485 

Nearly two generations have gone by, and one new, 
civilization has been much in evidence during the last 
half century, that of Japan, but the farthest-reaching 
telescope has not yet discovered any luminary indicat- 
ing that a second Theodore Parker is at hand. 

Page 391, note 4- ^^ a prayer meeting held at 
Park Street Church, Boston, within a stone's throw of 
the Music Hall, on March 6, 1858, for the purpose of 
praying for the conversion of " that notorious infidel, 
Theodore Parker," some of the forms of prayer offered 
were as follows : 

" O Lord, if this man (Parker) is a subject of grace, 
convert him and bring him into the kingdom of thy 
dear Son ; but if he is beyond the reach of the saving 
influence of the gospel, remove him out of the way, and 
let his influence die with him! " 

" O, Lord, send confusion and distraction into his 
study this afternoon and 'prevent his finishing his prep- 
aration for his labors to-morrow, or if he shall attempt 
to desecrate thy holy day by attempting to speak to the 
people, meet him there. Lord, and confound him so that 
he shall not be able to speak ! " 

" O Lord, meet this infidel on his way, who, like an- 
other Saul of Tarsus, is persecuting the Church of God, 
and cause a light to shine around him, which shall bring 
him trembling to the earth, and make him an able de- 
fender of the faith which he has so long labored to 
destroy." 

" Lord, we know that we cannot argue him down, and 
the more we say against him, the more will the people 
flock after him, and the more will they love and revere 
him. O Lord, what shall be done for Boston if thou 
dost not take this and some other matters in hand ! " 

" O, Lord, if this man will still persist in speaking in 
public, induce the people to leave him and come and 
fill this house instead of that! " 



486 NOTES 

One exhorted his brethren to pray that " God will put 
a hooh in this man's jaws, so that he may not be able to 
speak." 

One requested his brethren, whether in their places of 
business, or walking in the street, or wherever they 
might be, to pray for Mr. Parker every day when the 
clock should strike one. 

The place where this church is located, at the corner 
of Park and Tremont Streets, was at that time face- 
tiously known as " Brimstone Comer." 



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